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SYr.L^^BUS 


OF 


ANGLO-SAXON  LITERATURE 


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BY 


J.  M.  HART 


(UNIVERSITY   OF   nXC'T.W  ^TT 


ADAPTED    FROM    BERNPTARD    T  j:  N    BRINK'S 
GESGHlCHTl.    DER   EAC  LISCH  r  \    J  ITTERATVR 


CINCINNATT 
EOBEET   CLAEKE   &   ^.'0 

1881 


I 


I 

r 

I 


THE  GIFT  OF 

WILLIAM  G.  KERCKHOFF 

TO  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

AT  LOS  ANGELES 


THE  LIBRARY  OF 
FRIEDRICH  KLUGE 


SYLi:.A.BUS 


OF 


ANGLO-SAXON  LITERATURE 


BY 

J.  M.  HART 

(UNIVERSITY  OF  CINCINNATI) 


ADAPTED    FROM    BERNHARD    TEN    BRINK'S 
QESCHICHTE  DER  ENGLISCHEN  LITTERATVR 


>     :>     1    'i 


•'  -^'  '   i>.  :.f  ,v.  >.- 


CINCINNATI 

EOBEET   CLAEKE  &   CO 

1881 

UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFORNIA 

AT 

LOS  ANGELES 

LIBRARY 


COPYRIGHT,  1881 

By  J.   M.   HART 


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ANGLO-SAXON  LITERATURE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

KOMAN   BRITAIN. 


1.  The  earliest  known  inhabitants  of  England  be- 
longed to  the  Keltic  race,  and  were  called  Britons. 
When  Jnlius  Caesar  invaded  the  island,  55  B.  C,  they 
were  still  in  a  barbarous  or  semi-barbarous  state.  A 
serious  attempt  to  annex  the  island  permanently  to  the 
Roman  empire  was  not  made  until  43  A.  D.,  in  the  reign 
of  Claudius.  The  work  of  conquest  was  continued  dur- 
ing the  reigns  of  Vespasian,  Titus,  and  Domitian,  and 
was  complete  by  85  A.  D.  From  that  time  until  the 
5th  century  Britannia  and  the  southern  part  of  Scotia 
were  administered  as  a  Roman  province.  Roman  law, 
manners,  and  letters  were  introduced.  Large  towns 
grew  up,  e.g.,  York,  London,  Lincoln.  There  was  a 
thriving  trade  between  the  island  and  the  continent. 
Extensive  remains  of  roads,  aqueducts,  tesselated  pave- 
ments, and  the  like,  still  bear  witness  to  the  thorough- 
ness of  the  conquest.  When  the  Roman  world  became 
christianized,  Britain  also  shared  in  the  conversion. 
By  the  middle  of  the  4th  century  the  island  had  its 
hierarchy  and  a  well  developed  system  of  religious  or- 
ders and  monasteries. 

We  do  not  know  whether  the  primitive  Britons  pos- 
sessed anything  that  could  be  called  a  literature  of  their 
own,  and,  if  so,  of  what  character.  Roman  literature 
was  imported,  so  to  speak,  but  we  have  no  means  of  as- 
certaining whether  it  exerted  any  strong  direct  influence 


2  ANGLO-SAXON   LITEEATURE. 

on  the  mass  of  the  natives.  Britain  was  for  tlie  Romans 
nothing  more  than  a  military  outpost.  The  garrison 
consisted  usually  of  20,000 — 30,000  men,  stationed  at  im- 
portant strategic  points,  which  were  connected  by  mili- 
tary roads.  The  children  of  the  leading  native  families 
were  probably  educated  at  first  in  the  city  of  Eome, 
as  hostages,  subseqaently  at  home  in  Roman  schools 
under  the  supervision  of  the  Roman  governor.  The 
interior  population  in  and  around  the  Roman  towns  and 
camps  acquired  from  soldiers  and  public  oflicials  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  Latin  tongue  sufficient  for  the  ordinary  inter- 
course of  life.  But  the  rural  population,  w^hich  must 
have  largel}'  predominated,  remained  in  all  probability 
Keltic  in  habits,  tastes,  feelings,  and  speech.  Roman 
administration,  it  is  true,  was  as  energetic  and  efficient 
in  Britain  as  elsewhere.  It  suppressed,  for  instance, 
the  savage  rites  and  practices  of  Druidism,  and  secured 
to  every  man  protection  in  the  enjoyment  of  life  and 
property.  But  we  have  no  warrant  for  believing  that 
Roman  culture  ^pervaded  and  transformed  Britain  as  it 
pervaded  Gaul  and  Spain.  It  was  at  best  only  an  ex- 
otic, and  it  was  swept  away  by  the  first  breath  of  ad- 
versity. 

2.  In  consequence  of  the  dangers  which  threatened 
the  continental  and  more  vital  parts  of  the  empire,  the 
Roman  army  was  withdrawn  from  the  island  early  in 
the  5th  century,  and  the  Britons  were  left  to  struggle 
unaided  against  their  Keltic  kinsmen,  the  Picts  and 
Scots  on  the  north,  and  the  Irish  on  the  west  (the  coast 
of  Wales),  and  against  the  German  tribes  that  came  in 
ever-growing  numbers  from  across  the  Korth  Sea.  Tra- 
dition tells  us  that  these  Germans  were  invited  by  the 
Britons  to  help  them  against  the  Picts  and  Scots ;  after 
defeating  the  northern  invaders  in  a  series  of  bloody 
battles,  the   Germans   then   turned   their  arms  against 


COMING    OF    THE    GEKMANS.  S 

their  hosts,  the  Britons.  The  tradition  is  to  be  found  in 
Bede,  Nennius,  and  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  ;  the  story 
of  Hengist  and  Horsa,  Yortigern  and  Rowena,  as  it  has 
been  graphicall}-  narrated  by  Geoffrey,  is  doubtless  fa- 
miliar to  most  readers.  But  it  is  impossible  at  the  j)res- 
ent  day  to  unravel  the  true  and  the  fabulous  in  the 
story.  There  is  evidence  going  to  show  that  Germanic 
tribes  had  settled  in  considerable  numbers  along  the 
eastern  and  south-eastern  coast,  even  before  the  end  of 
the  4th  century.  The  only  fact  which  need  concern  the 
student  of  literature  is  that  German-speaking  tribes  be- 
gan a  conquest  of  the  island  in  the  course  of  the  5th 
century,  and  had  finished  it  substantially  by  the  end  of 
the  6th  century.  This  second  conquest  was  in  every  re- 
spect unlike  the  first.  It  was  not  a  iTiere  military  occu- 
pation, it  was  a  settlement  in  mass.  The  invaders 
brought  with  them  or  sent  for  their  families,  and  sought 
to  make  the  land  their  lasting  home.     Hence  the  war  be- 


tween  them  and  the  Britons  could  result  only  in  the 
total  subjection  and  dispossession  of  the  weaker  party. 
The  Britons  wem  finally  dispossesspd.  Many  were  slain 
outright  in  battle,  others  kille;!  off  in  petty  feuds,  others 
driven  across  the  channel  to  the  Armorican  peninsula  in 
France,  still  others  hemmed  in  among  the  mountain 
fastnesses  of  Wales.  B}^  the  year  GIO  the  eastern  part 
of  the  island  as  far  north  as  the  Firth  of  Forth,  all  the 
southern  and  central  parts,  and  the  w^estern  part  (except 
Wales,  Cornwall,  and  Devonshire)  as  far  north  as  the 
river  Mersey,  were  in  the  hands  of  the  Germans.  It  is 
usually  asserted  that  the  war  against  the  Britons  was  one 
of  utter  extermination.  But  it  is  more  probable  that 
•numerous  small  isolated  communities  of  Britons  sur- 
vived in  the  western  and  south-western  portions  of  what 
is  now  England  proper,  and  were  only  absorbed  in  the 
course  of  centuries,  by  the  slow  process  of  intermarriage. 


4  ANGLO  SAXON   LITERATURE. 

Hencefortli  the  country  is  called  by  its  German  name 
of  England. 

3.  The  permanent  vestiges  of  the  British  race  in  the 
land  that  was  once  their  own  may  be  bricflj^  summed  up 
as  follows.  The  Kelto-British  tongue  has  disappeared 
wholly  from  England  proper,  and  survives  only  in 
Welsh,  now  spoken  by  about  a  million  of  people.  A 
dialectic  variety  known  as  Cornish  became  extinct  early 
in  the  present  century.  According  to  some  scholars, 
certain  peculiarities  in  the  pronunciation  of  the  rural 
popuhition  in  the  south-western  and  western  counties  of 
England  are  of  Keltic  origin.  Tlie  Britons,  in  disap- 
pearing, transmitted  to  their  conquerors  a  few  Latin 
words  imposed  upon  them  by  tbe  Komans,  e.g.,  castrum, 
in  early  English  eeaster,in  modern  English  caster,  Chester, 
cester,  as  in  the  name  Chester,  and  in  the  compounds 
Dorchester,  Winchester,  Lancaster,  Leicester,  and  the 
like.  Also  colonia,  in  Lincoln ;  strata,  in  our  word 
'street;'  'porta,  in  J^ewport;  milia  in  'mile.'  Proba- 
bly also  onr  words  '  tile '  and  '  pear '  were  derived 
from  the  Romans  thronsfh  the  Britons.  Concernina: 
other  words  of  Latin  origin,  e.g.,  '  candel,'  '  bishop,' 
'  priest,'  '  mass,'  it  is  impossible  to  decide  whether 
they  were  transmitted  through  the  Britons,  or  were  bor- 
rowed by  the  English  directly  from  Rome.  Further- 
more, the  early  English  adopted  and  retained  some 
Keltic  words.  These  are  not  numerous.  They  are 
chiefly  names  of  familiar  household  objects,  or  names  of 
places,  especially  rivers.  Among  the  latter  are  Thames, 
Trent,  Tweed,  Severn,  Avon  (which  is  Keltic  for  running 
water  in  general),  and  the  group  of  names  Usk,  Ux, 
Wis  (in  Wisbec),  Eske,  Ouse — all  modifications  of  the 
Keltic  wise  '  water,'  which  is  also  found  in  the  High- 
land usquebagh,  corrupted  into  '  whisky,'  and  standing 
for  a  primitive  uisce  vaha,  meaning  '  water  of  life ;'  but 


SURVIVAL    OF   BRITISH    WORDS.  5 

this  word  usquebagh  has  been  introduced  into  English  in 
quite  recent  times.  To  the  former  class  belong  the 
words  '  basket,'  '  bran,'  '  wicket,'  '  clout,'  '  crag.'  An 
American  will  readily  understand  the  fate  of  the 
Keltic  language  in  England,  bj^  comparing  it  with  that 
of  the  Indian  language  in  this  country.  Although  the 
Indians  themselves  have  disappeared  from  the  greater 
part  of  the  United  States,  their  language  survives  in 
Susquehanna,  Juniata,  Potomac,  Mississippi,  Ohio,  Ni- 
agara, etc.,  and  in  wigwam,  wampum,  squaw,  toma- 
hawk, moccasin,  succotash,  etc. 

There  are  no  traces  of  any  influence  exerted  by  the 
Britons  upon  early  English  literature.  The  invaders 
brought  with  them  not  only  their  own  language,  but 
also  their  own — still  heathen — worship,  and  the  germs 
and  even  the  beginning  of/a  distiiifitly^Ly  German  poetic 
literature.  So  long  as  the  contest  lasted,  and  for  cen- 
turies afterward,  literature  in  England  was  either  dis- 
tinctly German,  or  was  based  upon  the  general  Roman 
Catholic  literature  of  the  continent.  It  is  not  until  the 
12th  century,  after  England  had  been  conquered  by 
the  Kormans,  that  we  observe  a  sudden  and  curious 
outgroAvth  of  British,  i.e.,  Welsh  literature.  But  this 
point  can  be  treated  only  in  connection  wath  the  Arthur- 
ian cycle  of  romance. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    GERMAN     CONQUERORS. 

4.  The  Germans  who  settled  in  England  came  from 
Jutland,  Schleswig,  and  Holstein,  and  from  the  coast  to 
the  west  of  the  Elbe,  known  as  Friesland.  Tlievwere  a 
sturdy,  warlike  race,  inured  from  childhood  to  privation 
and  danger.     Their  home  was  preeminently  a  trai  ning- 


b  AXGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

school  for  sailors.  Thev  and  their  successors,  the  Danes 
and  Xorsemeu,  were  as  sea-robbers  the  terror  of  Europe. 
The  5th  century  was  a  turning  point  in  history ;  it 
marked  the  prostration  of  the  "Western  Eoman  empire. 
ISTorthern  Gaul  was  seized  by  the  Franks,  Southern  Gaul 
by  the  Goths,  Eastern  Gaul  by  the  Burgundians.  The 
Langobards  established  themselves  even  in  IN^orthern 
Italy.  The  Cliristian  church  itself,  which  had  inspired 
the  noblest  hopes  and  efforts  of  humanity,  appeared  in 
danger  of  an  eclipse.  Culture  and  knowledge  were 
scarcely  safe  in  the  refuge  of  the  cloister.  Everywhere 
was  to  be  seen  the  foot-print  of  a  ruthless  heathen  in- 
vader. IsTo  wonder,  then,  that  the  Latin  writers  (chiefly 
ecclesiastics)  of  the  5th  and  6th  centuries  indulged  in 
bitter  lamentations.  The  Frank  and  the  Saxon,  the 
Goth  and  the  Dane,  were  in  their  sight  devils  sent  by  an 
angry  God  to  punish  the  world  for  sin.  Their  sufferings 
were  too  recent,  their  imaginations  too  heated,  for  them 
to  think  clearly.  Yet  it  is  from  them  that  we  derive  our 
knowledge  of  the  great  Germanic  Migration.  The  Ger- 
mans themselves  were  too  busy  fighting  and  plundering 
to  think  of  recording  their  deeds  autobiographicallj^ 
even  had  they  possessed  the  literary  ability.  It  is  neces- 
sary, therefore,  to  receive  with  caution  the  statements  of 
Latin  writers  concerning  the  character  of  the  German 
conquerors.  That  these  latter  were  fierce  in  battle  and 
eager  for  booty,  is  unquestionable.  They  were  further- 
more given  to  immoderate  eating  and  drinking,  and  their 
seasons  of  warlike  exertion  were  followed  by  long  spells 
of  idle  revelry.  But  thej^  can  not  possibly  have  been  the 
monsters  or  savages  that  we  read  of  in  early  chronicles 
or  even  in  some  modern  histories.  In  comparison  with 
modern  civilized  man,  they  were  quick  to  shed  blood; 
but  by  the  side  of  the  Romans  of  the  Republic,  they  ap- 
pear almost  humane.  "We  may  well  doubt  if  the  so- 
called  barbarian  Germans  during  the  whole  period  of  the 


JUTES,  ANGLES,  SAXONS.  7 

5th  and  6th  centuries  inflicted  in  all  Europe  as  mnch 
misery  as  was  wrought  by  Julius  Csesar  alone  in  the 
eio-ht  vears  that  he  was  eno;aged  in  subduino-  Gaul. 

We  can  trace  the  movements  and  study  the  features  of 
the  German  migration  on  the  continent  with  tolerable 
accurac3\  The  records,  although  sparse  and  vitiated  by 
prejudice,  are  in  the  main  intelligible.  But  the  con- 
quest of  England  is  hopelessly  obscure.  We  do  not  pos- 
sess a  single  contemporary  record,  nor  indeed  any  record 
that  is  self-consistent  or  even  plausible.  All  that  we  can 
do  is  to  note  here  and  there  a  point  in  the  light  afforded 
by  the  study  of  general  European  history. 

The  invaders  of  England  were  all  of  the  same  race,  yet 
there  was  diversity  enough  among  them  to  lead  us  to  es- 
tablish a  threefold  grouping  into  the  Jutes  (from  Jut- 
land), the  Angles  (from  Schleswig-Holstein),  and  the 
Saxons,  an  offshoot  of  the  great  family  of  that  name 
then  occupying  the  regions  along  the  middle  and  lower 
Elbe.  The  Jutes  are  said  to  have  seized  upon  Kent ;  the 
Angles  occupied  the  eastern,  the  Saxons  the  western  and 
southern  parts  of  the  island.  All  three  groups  spoke  the 
same  language,  but  in  forms  that  differeil  enough  to  be 
called  dialects.  These  main  dialects  subsist  to  the  present 
day,  and  are  called  the  northern,  the  southern,  and  the 
Kentish.  Each  has  its  sub-varieties.  In  general  we  may 
say  that  at  no  time  in  the  history  of  England  have  the 
inhabitants  of  one  county  had  much  ditheulty  in  under- 
standing the  inhabitants  of  any  other.  There  has  never 
been  such  a  dividing  line  between  north  and  south  as  ex- 
ists for  instance  in  continental  Germany  between  High 
German  and  Low.  The  fitting  title  to  be  given  to  the 
common  speech  of  England  in  these  early  days  before 
the  Norman  Conquest  is  a  question  which  has  been  much 
discussed  of  late.  One  set  of  scholars,  including  Mr. 
Sweet,  Mr.  Freeman,  Mr.  Morris,  Prof,  ten  Brink,  assert 
that  the  only  rightful  title  is  '  Old-English.'     Another 


8  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

and  more  numerous  set  prefer  to  call  it,  for  the  sake  of 
exactness,  '  Anglo-Saxon,'  reserving  the  term  '  Old-Eng- 
lish '  for  the  period  after  the  Norman  Conquest.  Each 
terminology  has  its  advantages  and  its  disadvantages. 
In  the  following  pages  '  Anglo-Saxon  '  will  be  employed 
wherever  it  seems  desirable. 

5.  Anglo-Saxon  was  an  offshoot  of  Low,  i.e.  !N"orth- 
Gcrman  speech,  and  resembled  very  closely  the  so-called 
Old-Saxon,  the  language  which  was  spoken  between  the 
Lower  Rhine  and  the  Elbe  and  of  which  we  possess  con- 
siderable literary  remains  of  the  9th  century.  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  Old-Saxon,  in  fact,  resemble  each  other 
so  closely  that  an  English  monk  of  those  days,  removing 
from  Winchester  to  Padcrborn,  must  have  been  able  to 
make  himself  at  home  almost  immediately.  As  a  matter 
of  history  we  know  that  many  English  monks  did  emi- 
grate to  this  Rhine-Elbe  region  in  the  8th  and  9th 
centuries,  to  labor  as  missionaries,  and  that  they  exerted 
a  perceptible  influence  in  shaping  the  ecclesiastical  prose 
form  of  Old-Saxon.  One  single  fact  will  be  enough  to 
illustrate  the  kinship  of  the  two  lano-uaffes.  The  Ans-lo- 
Saxon  poem  on  the  creation  and  fall  of  man,  commonly 
called  Genesis  and  once  attributed  to  Caedmon,was  pub- 
lished by  Franciscus  Junius  in  1655.  Until  1875  it  was 
supposed,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  be  perfectly  pure 
Anglo-Saxon.  But  in  1875  Professor  Sievers  showed 
conclusively  that  about  one  fifth  of  the  poem  is  inter- 
polated, and  that  this  interpolation  is  a  fragment  of  an 
Anglo-Saxon  version  of  an  earlier  Old-Saxon  poem  on 
the  same  subject.  Whoever  converted  the  Old-Saxon 
poem  into  Anglo-Saxon  suffered  inadvertently  a  few 
words  and  phrases  to  remain,  that  are  peculiar  to  Old- 
Saxon  and  are  not  found  elsewhere  in  Eno-lish  literature. 
Yet  the  general  resemblance  of  the  two  languages  is  so 
great  that  these  un-English  elements  escaped  the  notice 


ANGLO-SAXON   LANGUAGE    AND    INSTITUTIONS.  9 

of  scholars  and  editors  for  upwards  of   two  centiiries. 
See  §  21. 

A  few  remarks  upon  the  more  general  features  of 
Anglo-Saxon  speech  will  not  be  out  of  phice.  It  is  rich 
in  Avords  for  weapons,  such  as  the  sword,  the  shield,  the 
spear,  in  words  descriptive  of  combat,  and  in  words  re- 
lating to  ships  and  the  sea.  It  impresses  us  immediately 
as  the  speech  of  a  fighting,  sea-faring  folk.  On  the 
other  hand  it  is  rich  in  words  expressive  of  moods  and 
emotions  of  the  mind.  We  have  lost  many  of  these 
latter  terms,  having  substituted  for  them  words  of  Nor- 
man-French or  Latin  or  Greek  ori2:in.  Those  which  re- 
main  represent  the  subtler  and  more  mysterious  side  of 
our  nature.  There  is  one  feature  of  Anglo-Saxon  which 
does  not  seem  to  liave  attracted  the  notice  of  scholars  in 
England,  although  German  scholars  have  laid  much 
stress  on  it.  ]Namely,  its  tendency  toward  introspection, 
and  the  favoring  of  a  sad  or  at  least  plaintive  dispos- 
ition. This  trait,  it  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  still 
subsists  in  our  modern  speech.  With  all  its  robustness, 
its  common-sense  power  of  adapting  itself  to  the  realities 
of  the  world,  English,  contrasted  with  the  Romance 
languages  and  with  continental  German,  still  moves 
with  an  undercurrent  of  sadness.     See  §  18. 

6,  Our  knowledge  of  the  institutions  and  the  religion 
of  the  Angles  and  Saxons  at  the  time  of  their  settlement 
has  been  obtained  almost  altogether  from  a  studj^  of  kin- 
dred relations  on  the  continent.  The  people  were  divided 
into  three  classes  :  the  nobles,  cor^as;  the  simple  freemen, 
ccorlas;  and  the  slaves.  The  chief  among  the  nobles, 
the  princes,  gathered  around  them  a  retinue  of  devoted 
personal  adherents,  the  thegnas,  or  '  thanes.'  As  the 
princes  grew  in  power  and  dignity,  and — by  reason  ot 
greater  familiarity  with  Roman  institutions — assumed 
more  and  more  of  the  prerogatives  of  the  Roman  em- 


10  ANGLO-SAXON    LITERATURE. 

perors,  these  thegnas  attained  to  the  position  of  a  court- 
iiobility,  outranking  the  elder  hereditary  nobility  of  the 
eorlas.  They  were  enriched  by  gifts  of  land  conquered 
in  war,  and  held  their  possessions  upon  condition  of  ren- 
dering military  service.  We  thus  lind  the  outlines  of 
the  feudal  system  clearly  marked  in  England  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  period,  although  the  S3'Stem  reached  its 
full  development  only  after  and  in  consequence  of  the 
Norman  Conquest.  This  feudal  or  semi-feudal  spirit  is 
worthy  of  especial  note,  for  it  pervades  all  the  early 
poetry  of  England.  In  the  poetry  of  heathen  origin  it 
is  of  course  conspicuous.  The  prince  is  constantly  de- 
scribed as  the  giver  of  rings  and  gold  bracelets,  of  costly 
helmets  and  trusty  swords.  A  right-minded  prince  is  a 
free  ^iver ;  an  ignoble  prince  is  grasping  and  miserly. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  loyal  thane  is  one  who  sliows  him- 
self worthy  of  his  lord's  munificence,  standing  by  him  in 
danger  and  perishing  with  him  in  battle.  This  notion  of 
giving  and  receiving,  of  generosity  and  personal  attach- 
ment, is  the  key-note  of  all  early  German  heroic  poetry. 
In  Anglo-Saxon  literature  we  fi.nd  it  almost  as  pro- 
nounced in  Christian  as  in  heathen  poetr}^  God  is  the 
giver  of  life  and  health ;  life  is  a  loan  from  the  Maker, 
and  death  a  calUng-iii  of  the  loan.  Christ  is  the  prince 
of  glory,  and  the  apostles  are  his  faithful  thanes.  Satan 
and  his  companions  are  faithless  thanes,  and  their  rebel- 
lion is  an  ungrateful  breach  of  allegiance. 

7.  We  know  even  less  of  the  religion  of  the  Angles  and 
Saxons  than  of  their  political  institutions.  Several  quite 
recent  discoveries  have  shaken  the  confidence  of  scholars 
in  former  theories  based  upon  the  Edda.  It  is  at  best 
doubtful  whether  the  subject  of  Old-German  heathen  be- 
lief can  be  mad«  intelligible  to  any  one  not  familiar  with 
the  general  processes  and  results  of  comparative  mythol- 
ogy.   Only  a  few  of  the  striking  features  will  be  given  here, 


ANGLO-SAXON   MYTHOLOGY.  11 

and  even  these  will  be  of  a  negative  rather  than  of  a  pos- 
itive character.  The  Angles  and  Saxons,  like  their  con- 
tinental kinsmen,  worshi[)ped  certain  so-called  divinities, 
Othin,  Thor,  Loki,  Freya,  &c.  These  divinities  were 
originally  natnre-myths,  that  is,  forces  or  phenomena  of 
natnre,  such  as  the  wind,  thunder,  fire,  the  fertility  of 
the  earth,  personified  and  invested  with  human  attributes, 
male  or  female.  There  is  an  unquestionable  similarity, 
or  parallelism,  between  the  German  divinities,  and  those 
of  Greece  and  of  India,  so  much  so  that  scholars  are 
agreed  in  assigning  all  three  groups  to  one  common  prim- 
itive Indo-European  conception  of  natnre.  The  difier- 
ences  among  the  three  are  due  in  general  to  the  greater 
or  less  thoroughness  with  which  a  nature-force  or  phe- 
nomenon has  been  reduced  to  purely  human  shape  and 
proportions,  or — to  use  the  technical  term — has  been  «n- 
thro-pomorpliized.  In  this  respect  the  German  group 
stands  midAvay  between  the  Indian  and  the  Greek.  The 
Vedic  divinities,  e.g.  Agni,  the  god  of  fire,  Vaya,  the 
god  of  the  wind,  Indra,  the  god  of  the  clear  sky,  Usha, 
the  goddess  of  the  dawn,  are  still  unmistakable  nature- 
forces  ;  they  can  scarcely  be  called  '  persons '  at  all.  On 
the  other  hand  Jupiter,  ISTeptune,  Apollo,  Yenus,  &c., 
have  lost  almost  every  trace  of  their  origin  and  have  be- 
come mere  men  and  women  of  extraordinary  powers. 
Whereas  the  German  Othin,  Thor  and  their  associates, 
although  no  longer  mere  myths,  are  not  yet  mere  men 
and  women.  Tliej^  lack  that  sharpness  of  outline  and 
that  perfect  intelligibility  which  constitute  the  charm  of 
the  Olympic  gods  in  Homer.  They  come  down  and 
move  among  men,  they  fight  side  by  side  with  heroes, 
but  they  never  cease  to  be  misty,  supernatural,  phantas- 
magoric. 

We  know  far  less  of  the  Germanic  system  than  of  the 
Greek  or  the  Indian,  and  the  explanation  is  obvious 
enough.      Both    Greeks   and  Ilindoos  developed  their 


12  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATUKE. 

systems  naturally  and  fully,  not  onlj'  in  literature  but  in 
painting  and  sculpture,  before  coming  in  contact  with 
Christianity.  The  Germans,  on  the  contrary,  were  con- 
verted to  Christianity  before  they  had  fairly  begun  the 
literary  or  pictorial  expression  of  their  heathen  concep- 
tion. In  accepting  Christian  doctrines  they  gave  up  de- 
liberately their  early  beliefs.  It  became  a  matter  of  con- 
science with  them  to  ignore  everything  anterior  to  Chris- 
tianity as  crude  and  barbarous.  The  priests  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  church  were  inflexible  in  their  efibrts  to 
eradicate  whatever  savored  of  heathenism  in  manners, 
customs,  and  even  speech.  There  is  more  than  one  pas- 
;8age  in  the  poem  of  Beowulf,  for  instance,  which  has 
ievidently  been  altered  to  suit  ecclesiastical  requirements. 
jit  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  the  remains  we  possess  of 
early  heathen  literature  should  be  so  fragmentary  and 
confused.  The  wonder  is  rather  that  so  much  should 
have  escaped  the  general  destruction. 

Concerning  the  religion  of  the  heathen  Germans,  we 
should  not  be  safe  in  asserting  more  than  the  following  : 
it  had  no  priesthood,  no  distinct  order  to  mediate  be- 
tween men  and  gods ;  it  exacted  no  sacrihce  of  human 
blood,  although  victims,  usually  captives,  were  occa- 
sionally slain  upon  the  altar;  it  paid  great  respect  to 
women,  investing  them  with  a  quasi-prophetic  sacred 
character;  it  looked  upon  cowardice  and  treachery  as  the 
basest  of  vices  ;  it  held  out  the  hope  of  a  future  life  re- 
producing the  main  features  of  life  on  earth ;  its  service 
consisted  chiefly  of  warlike  hymns  or  chants. 


HYMNIC    AND    HEROIC    POETRY.  13 


CHAPTER  III. 

GENERAL  FEATURES  OF  THE  EARLY  POETRY. 

8.  The  earliest  poetry  among  the  Germans  was  of  a 
religious  kind,  in  the  shape  of  hymns  to  the  gods  upon 
solemn  occasions.  Being  addressed  directly  to  the  gods, 
it  was  necessaril}^  an  expression  of  mythological  con- 
ceptions. And  as  the  hymns  were  sung,  or  at  least 
chanted,  they  were  composed  in  short  strophes  or  stanzas. 
Remains  of  such  hymnic  poetry  are  quite  evident  in  the 
Edda.  In  Anglo-Saxon  literature  tliey  are  barely  dis- 
cernible. 

In  Germany  proper  and  in  England,  hymnic  poetry 
was  superseded  by  heroic  verse.  To  understand  the 
growth  of  this  latter  system,  we  must  keep  in  view  the 
general  tendencies  of  European  history.  The  fifth  cen- 
tury was  a  turning-point  not  only  for  tlie  Roman  world 
but  for  the  German  conquerors  themselves.  It  was  the 
beginning  of  their  '  heroic  age.'  To  us,  who  study  the 
events  of  the  great  Migration  in  a  critical  spirit,  with 
the  aid  of  contemporary  Latin  records,  such  leaders  as 
Theoderic,  King  of  the  Goths,  are  actual  men  like  our- 
selves, without  a  trace  of  tlie  supernatural.  But  it  was 
quite  otherwise  with  the  illiterate  but  imaginative  de- 
scendants of  the  Goths,  the  Franks,  or  the  Burgundians, 
in  the  6th  and  subsequent  centuries.  Popular  imag- 
ination, stimulated  bj-  oral  tradition,  endowed  the  great 
chieftains  of  the  5th  century  with  superhuman  strength 
and  courage,  and  crowned  their  deeds  with  the  halo  of 
romance.  Great  men  became,  in  a  word,  '  heroes,'  and 
their  deeds  became  the  theme  of  popular  poetry.  This 
secular  poetry,  in  supplanting  the  elder  hymns,  retained 
not  a  few  of   their  mythological   elements.     Attributes 


14  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

and  actions  of  the  gods  were  transferred  to  the  heroes, 
thereb}'  making  them  semi-mythicaL  The  process  will  be 
treated  more  fully  in  the  remarks  upon  the  Beowulf  poem, 
§  12.  For  the  present  it  will  be  enough  to  say  that  the 
new  heroic  poetry  first  found  expression  in  short  pieces, 
commemorating  a  single  exploit  of  some  well  known 
hero.  The  poem  places  us,  without  any  prelude,  in  the 
very  midst  of  the  action,  and  the  actors  reveal  their 
character  and  antecedents  by  what  they  do  and  say.  A 
striking  instance  is  the  Hildebrands-lied,  in  Old-German 
of  the  8th  century.  It  begins  :  "  I  heard  tell  that  Ililde- 
brand  and  Hadabrand,  in  between  the  two  armies,  made 
ready  their  armor,  girded  on  their  swords.  And  Eilde- 
brand,  he  was  the  elder,  inquired  of  the  other,  in  few 
words,  who  his  father  might  be,  &c."  He  himself  is  the 
father;  he  had  fled  from  home  twenty  years  before,  on 
account  of  political  troubles,  and  had  taken  refuge  with 
Dietrich  (i.e.,  Theoderic),  at  the  court  of  Attila,  King  ot 
the  Huns.  Now  he  is  returning  home  at  the  head  of  an 
army,  to  recover  his  possessions,  but  is  stopped  by  his 
son,  who  has  in  the  meanwhile  grown  to  manhood.  By 
dint  of  questioning,  the  father  finds  out  that  his  foe  is 
his  son,  and  declares  himself.  But  the  sou  refuses  to 
believe,  reviles  him  for  'an  old  Hun,'  and  insists  upon 
fig-htino-.  Tlie  father's  lament  at  being  thus  forced  to 
an  unnatural  combat  is  extremely  touching.  The  poem 
breaks  ofi"  at  the  first  encounter,  so  that  what  we  have 
is  only  a  fragment.  Most  scholars  are  of  the  opinion 
that  it  ended  tragically,  with  the  death  of  the  son. 

The  strophe  or  stanza  of  the  elder  hymnic  poetry  was 
unsuited  to  these  new  heroic  poems,  which  were  not 
sung  but  recited.  It  was  therefore  discarded,  except  in 
the  literature  of  Scandinavia,  and  for  it  was  substituted 
a  continuous  flow  of  verse.  The  difference  between 
stanza-verse  and  continuous  verse  may  be  readily  felt  by 
comparing  the  Faery  Queen  with  Paradise  Lost.    In  a 


FORMATION   OF    HEROIC   POETRY.  15 

narrative  piece  of  any  length,  it  is  impossible  for  the 
poet  to  express  each  successive  thought  or  action  in  a 
fixed  number  of  lines.  Either  he  will  have  too  little  to 
say,  and  consequently  will  eke  out  the  stanza  with  a 
superfluous  line  or  two;  or  he  will  have  too  much  to  say, 
and  will  carry  over  the  sentence  into  the  succeeding 
stanza,  thereby  occasioning  an  awkward  enjambement,  or 
'straddling.' 

In  the  course  of  time  the  short  episodic  poems  grouped 
themselves  into  longer  poems,  commemorating  a  series 
of  deeds  by  a  certain  hero,  or  the  fortunes  of  a  hero  and 
his  com})anions,  or  a  long  chain  of  events  in  which 
many  members  of  a  familj'  or  leaders  of  a  tribe  partici- 
pated. Such  longer  pieces  may  be  called  'epics.'  An 
instance  of  a  modern  poem  in  imitation  of  a  medieval 
epic  is  Tennyson's  Enid;  on  the  other  hand  the  Lady  of 
Shalotf,  like  the  HiUlehrands-lied,  is  episodic.  The  Iliad 
and  the  Odyssey  are  examples  of  epic  poetry  in  its  perfec- 
tion. Finally,  all  the  poems,  episodic  and  epic,  and  all 
the  scattered  traditions  relatins^  to  one  set  of  heroes  and 
events  constitute  what  is  called  a  'cycle'  of  fable. 
Thus,  Tennyson's  Lady  of  Shaloii,  Sir  Galahad,  Idylls  of 
the  King,  &c.,  are  parts  of  the  great  medieval  cycle  of 
King  Arthur  and  the  Knights  of  the  Round  Table. 

9.  There  was  not  among  the  early  Germans  a  sepa- 
rate class  of  singers  or  poets.  All,  from  the  King  down 
to  the  simple  ccod,  had  the  right  to  sing  in  public  assem- 
blies. It  was  even  expected  of  every  one  present  at  the 
board,  wdien  the  mead-cup  and  the  harp  were  passed 
around,  that  he  should  contribute  his  share  to  the  even- 
ing's entertainment.  The  custom,  which  still  lingers  in 
the  Rundgesang  of  modern  Germany,  is  well  illustrated 
by  the  story  told  of  Caedmon,  see  §  20.  These  old  Ger- 
man and  English  '  songs '  were  not  songs  in  the  modern 
sense;  they  were  '  recitals'   of  the  great  deeds  of  popu- 


16  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

lar  heroes.  Botli  speaker  and  listener  were  familiar, 
through  long  practice,  with  the  leading  events  in  the 
histor}'  of  the  tribe  or  the  nation,  and  wirh  the  ancestry, 
life,  character,  and  habits  of  each  hero.  Hence  the 
abruptness  of  such  poetry.  The  singer  has  a  right  to 
take  for  granted  that  his  hearers  are  as  familiar  as  him- 
self with  the  substance  of  the  story  he  is  to  narrate. 
He  not  only  plunges  boldly  in  medias  res,  e.g.,  in  the  BU- 
debrands-lied  above  mentioned,  but  he  interrupts  the 
course  of  the  main  narrative  with  allusions  to  persons 
and  events  indirectly  connected  with  it.  Such  allusions 
are  often  quite  brief.  Tliey  can  not  in  strictness  be 
called  obscure,  for  doubtless  they  were  understood  at 
once  by  the  original  hearers.  But  to  a  modern  reader 
they  are  extremely  ditficult. 

The  substance  of  the  stories  handed  down  to  ns  in 
Anglo-Saxon  and  other  Old-German  is  eminently  a  pro- 
duct of  the  popular  mind.  Generation  after  generation 
labored  upon  the  stories  before  they  assumed  the  shape 
in  which  we  have  them.  'No  less  popular  is  the  form  of 
verse.  It  is  at  once  simple,  powerful,  and  flexible.  It 
was  not  too  difficult  for  the  common  man  to  use,  yet  in 
the  mouth  of  an  accomplished  narrator  it  was  capable  of 
expressing  all  that  the  mind  of  those  early  days  was 
capable  of  conceiving. 

This  Old-German  verse  is  usually  called,  after  its  most 
striking  feature,  '  alliterative.'  The  number  of  syllables 
in  the  verse  is  not  fixed  exactly ;  nor  can  we  say  that  the 
verse  is  divided  into  '  feet.'  There  is  no  terminal  rime. 
Each  fall  verse  (line),  as  printed  in  recent  editions,  is  to 
be  read  in  two  sections  nearly  but  not  quite  equal.  In 
early  editions  the  sections  were  printed  as  separate  lines. 
The  two  sections  produce  an  effect  not  unlike  that  of  a 
modern  '  couplet,'  for  they  are  coupled  together  by  cer- 
tain words  beginning  with  the  same  sound,  i.e.,  they  are 
£iiid  to  '  alliterate.'     Thus  : 


ALLITERATIVE    VERSE.  17 

flota  famighals     fugle  gelicost 

the  ship  foamy-necked,  to  a  fowl  most  like 

The  three  /-soniids  alliterate.  Any  vowel  may  allit- 
erate with  any  other  vowel,  e.g. 

Tha  com  in  gan     ealdor  thegna 

Then  came  in-going  the  prince  of  the  thanes 

The  verb  c6m.  with  the  dependent  compound  infinitive 
in-gdn  is  equivalent  to  the  modern  '  entered.'  The  i  of 
the  prefix  in  alliterates  with  the  ea  of  ealdor.  Strictly  a 
consonant  can  alliterate  only  with  itself;  l)ut  there  are 
some  licenses.  In  the  most  correct  verse  there  are  two 
alliterative  sounds  in  the  first  section  of  the  line  and  one 
in  the  second.  But  very  frequently  there  is  only  one  in 
each,  and  sometimes  we  find  two  in  each,  although  not 
often  in  Anglo-Saxon  poetry.  It  has  been  stated  above 
that  there  is  no  terminal  rime  in  alliterative  verse.  This 
is  strictly  true  of  the  heathen  poetry,  and  also  in  general 
of  the  Christian  poetry  until  a  comparatively  late  period, 
when  we  find  rimes  creeping  in.  They  are  an  imitation 
of  the  Latin  hymns  of  the  Catholic  church,  and  the 
forerunners  of  our  modern  system.  Hence  they  are 
nearly  always  to  be  considered  as  symptoms  of  a  decline 
of  the  early  alliterative  system.     See  §  30. 

The  alliteration  rests  usually  on  the  emphatic  words 
of  the  sentence.  Sound  and  sense,  therefore,  go  hand 
in  hand  and  help  each  other.  When  properly  read,  an 
alliterative  poem  is  ensy,  flowing,  and  dignified.  It 
has  moreover  a  peculiar  power  which  the  scholar  alone 
will  appreciate  and  which  can  not  be  reproduced  in  any 
modern  imitation.  One  reason  is  that  our  early  speech 
abounded  in  standing  epithets,  and  set  phrases  and  form- 
ulae, which  have  ceased  to  exist.  Besides,  modern  imi- 
tators fail  to  perceive  that  alliteration  is  something  more 
than  the  mere  recurrence  of  a  certain  sound  two  or  three 
times  in  the  course  of  the  line.     The  line  itself  has  a 


/ 


18  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

structure  of  its  own  ;  it  is,  as  already  stated,  a  couplet  in 
which  the  first  part  is  balanced  by  the  second.  We  need 
only  compare  a  line  from  the  Beowulf-poem  with  a  line 
from  Tennyson. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  poet  says  : 

Gewat  tha  ofer  waegholm    wipde  gefysed 
Flota  famighals    fugle  gelicost 
Went  then  over  the  wave-top,  by  the  wind  urged, 
The  ship  &c. 

The  ge  in  gewdt  is  unaccented  and  the  following  lo  al- 
literates with  those  in  icdeg  and  winde.  The  whole  line 
makes  upon  the  ear  a  very  difierent  etiect  from  Tenny- 
son's: 

They  wept  and  wailed  but  led  the  way 

Tennyson  also  gives  us,  it  is  true,  three  w's,  but  we  feel 
that  the  phrase  'but  led  the  way'  does  not  'balance'  the 
preceding,  and  we  wait  instinctively  for  the  next  line : 

To  where  a  little  shallop  lay 

to  complete  the  effect,  by  means  of  its  rime  'way  :  lay.' 
But  this  rime  is  no  alliteration. 

10.  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  differs  from  modern  English 
in  its  style  also.  The  language  is  synthetic,  i.e.,  it  de- 
notes grammatical  relations  bj'  varying  the  forms  of 
words.  It  is  not  tied  dow^i  to  the  modern  losjical  order: 
subject,  copula,  predicate.  The  poet  is,  in  general,  free 
to  arrange  the  Avords  with  a  view  to  their  effect  upon  the 
ear  and  the  imagination.  Hence  inversions  are  quite 
common.  There  is  also  a  marked  tendency  to  amplifi- 
'  cation.  An  object  is  described,  an  action  narrated  by  suc- 
cessive  sets  of  phrases,  that  are  not  to  be  taken  as  repe- 
'^  titions  but  as  shiftings  of  the  view-point.  Thus,  in  the 
passage  cited,  §  9,  the  ship  is  spoken  of  as  'the  floating 
thing,'  then  as  '  the  twining  or  curved  stem.'  The  ap- 
proach to  land  is  given  in  three  phrases;  they  (the  mari- 


STYLE    OF    HEROIC    POETRY.  19 

ners)  saw  '  the  strand-el ift's,'  '  the  steep  hills,'  '  the  broad 
sea-promontories.'  In  modern  speech  such  amplification 
might  be  wearisome ;  but  in  primitive  poetry  it  adds  life 
and  variety.  The  poet  seems  to  be  reproducing  from 
memory  his  impressions  in  the  order  in  which  they  were 
made  upon  his  mind.  Finallj^  the  language  is  rich  in  '^' 
plain  and  obvious  similies,  but  not  in  formal  comparisons. 
The  body  is  called  bdn-loca,  the  'bone-case;'  to  make  a 
speech  is  '  to  unlock  the  treasure  of  words  in  one's  breast.' 
The  scream  of  the  ravens  gathering  around  the  corpses 
after  the  fight  is  called  the  '  evening-song;'  the  hissing 
of  the  sword  in  battle  is  also  a  'song.'  The  battle  itself 
is  called  ecga  geldc,  the  '  play  of  edges.' 

It  was  stated,  §  9  beginning,  tiiat  there  was  no  sepa- 
rate class  of  poets.  Song-craft  was  the  common  posses- 
sion of  all.  Nevertheless  certain  men  must  have  been 
more  richly  endowed  than  others  with  p.oetic  gifts.  They 
were  sweet  singers  by  eminence.  Some  few  excepted, 
tliey  have  not  left  a  record  of  their  names,  nor  can  we 
identify  their  names  with  any  of  the  poems  that  we 
possess.  But  the  tradition  of  such  poets  was  preserved 
*  until  late  in  the  Middle  Ages.  A  notable  instance  is 
Horant,  who  figures  in  the  great  German  epic  of  Gudrun, 
and  of  whom  the  poem  tells  us  that  when  he  sang,  the 
birds  ceased  to  warble,  the  sick  forgot  their  pains,  the 
workman  stopped,  the  beasts  of  the  wood,  the  fish  in  the 
water,  the  very  insects  in  the  grass,  paused  to  listen. 
Horant,  then,  is  the  counterpart  to  Orpheus.  Both  name 
and  works  of  at  least  one  poet  among  the  Angles  and  / 
Saxons,  namely  Cynewulf,  have  been  preserved.  See  §  24. 
In  estimating  our  early  heathen  poetry,  we  should 
never  forget  that  we  have  only  disjoinjted_reranants  af-/^'' 
what  was  once  a  large  body  of  literature.  Had  we  all 
the  popular  narrative  poems  current  in  England  in  the 
7th,  8th,  and  9th  centuries,  our  knowledge  would  be  en- 
hanced a  hundred-fold.     We  must  also  learn  to  discrim- 


20  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

inate  carefully  between  the  part  plaj^ed  by  the  folk  at 
large  and  that  played  by  the  individual  in  the  composition 
of  such  poetry.  The  substance  of  the  poem,  i.e.,  the 
story,  the  heroes,  their  character  and  exploits,  were  the 
common  tradition  of  the  people.  In  these  respects  there 
was  no  room  for  poetic  'invention'  in  our  modern 
sense.  Whoever  in  Old  England  undertook  to  tell  in 
verse  of  the  deeds  of  the  forefathers  was  not  at  liberty  to 
add  or  to  change  a  name,  an  incident,  or  a  trait  of  char- 
acter. All  that  he  could  call  his  own  was  the  maimer  of 
telling.     And,  as  Lowell  has  put  it: — 

He  tells  it  last,  who  tells  it  best. 

We  can  imagine  a  favorite  story  passed  along  from  gen- 
eration to  generation,  until  some  one  poet  arises,  Avho 
succeeds  in  telling  it  so  well  that  his  version  becomes  the 
final  one.  Plenceforth  all  that  remains  to  be  done  is  to 
preserve  it  in  this  shape.  The  name  of  the  poet  may 
disappear  utterly;  the  story  itself  never  was  his;  but  the 
version  is  his,  even  although  it  bear  no  name. 

11.  One  more  general  feature  of  our  early  poetry 
must  be  introduced  in  this  place,  although  it  obliges  us 
to  anticipate  somewhat  the  course  of  political  events.  It 
was  stated,  §4,  that  three  varieties  of  speech,  called  dia- 
alects,  were  spoken  in  England,  viz.,  the  northern  dSTorth- 
umbrian),  the  southern  (West-Saxon.,  ^r  WegBQ:?^) .  and 
the  Kentish.  We  learn  from  history  that  Korthumbria 
first  rose  to  eminence  in  ecclesiastical.  politicaL  and  lit- 
erary matters.  It  took  the  lead  throus'liout  the  7th  and 
8th  centuries.  Most  of  the  conspicuous  men  of  England 
prior  to  the  9th  century  were  Northumbrians  by  birth  or 
by  residence  and  education.  Thus  Bede,  Caedmon, 
Cynewulf,  &c.  It  is  highly  probable,  also,  that  the  poem 
of  Beowulf  was  composed  in  North umbria.  We  should 
expect,  therefore,  to   find   the  earliest  literary  remains 


NORTHUMBIIIA    AND    WESSEX.  21 

written  in  the  Nortlmmbrian  dialect.  But  this  is  not  the 
case.  All  the  early  poetry,  heathen  as  well  as  (Jliristian, 
and  ahiiost  all  the  early  prose,  are  in  ti^e  Wessex  dialect- 
The  only  specimen  of  yerse  in  the  Northumbrian  dia- 
lect  of  this  period  is  a  fragment  of  nine  lines  at  the  end 
of  a  Latin  manuscript  of  Bede's  Historia,  see  §  19,  20. 
If  the  earliest  literature  in  England  was  composed  in 
Northumbria,  how  can  we  account  for  the  phenomenon 
that  it  has  all  been  transmitted  to  us  in  the  speech  of 
Wessex?  The  explanation  usually  given  is  this.  From 
the  beginning  of  the  9th  century  J^orthumbria  was  rav^ 
aged  more  and  more  by  the  Danes.  At  one  time  it  was 
completel}^  in  their  power.  Being  heathens,  the}^  acted 
as  the  Ano'les  and  Saxons  themselyes  had  acted  three 
centuries  before.  They  plundered  the  monasteries,  which 
were  the  seats  of  learning  and  the  libraries  of  those  days, 
and  scattered  or  destroyed  the  manuscripts.  Even  Wes- 
sex was  in  danger,  and  was  saved  only  through  the 
genius  and  energy  of  King  Alfred.  It  is  commonly  be- 
lieved by  scholars  that  in  or  before  the  reign  of  King 
Alfred  a  great  part  of  early  !N"orthumbrian  poetry  was 
transcribed  and  recast  in  Wessex  forms,  and  that  these 
Wessex  versions  have  been  handed  down  to  us,  wiiile  the. 
ISTorthumbrian  originals  perishecL  In  consequence  of  the 
Danish  invasions,  the  centre  of  political  and  literary 
activity  was  shifted  from  l^orthnmbria  to  Wessex.  The 
capital  of  King  Alfred  and  his  successors,  Winchester, 
became  the  seat  of  learning.  And  it  was  here,  in  and 
around  Winchester,  that  the  lirst  English  prose  literature 
originated.  As  will  be  shown  in  a  subsequent  place, 
King  Alfred  himself  labored  indefatigably  in  shaping 
this  prose.  Comparing  the  two  great  divisions  of  the 
island,  then,  we  may  say  that  Northumbria  is  entitled  to 
the  credit  of  creating  our  earliest  poetry,  Wessex  to  the 
two-fold  credit  of  preserving  that  poetry  and  of  creating 
our  earliest  prose. 


22  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 


CHAPTEK  IV. 

BEOWULF  AND  OTHER  HEATHEN  POETRY. 

13,  The  poem  of  Beowulf  is  by  far  the  most  import- 
ant and  interesting  monument  of  early  German  poetry, 
not  only  by  virtue  of  its  length  and  the  variety  of  inci- 
dent it  aftbrds,  but  by  its  vigor  of  style  and  the  light  it 
throws  upon  manners  and  customs.  The  substance  of 
the  story  is  a  blending  of  myth  and  history,  and  aptly 
illustrates  what  was  stated  §  8. 

The  germ  of  the  story  is  mythical.  Before  the  con- 
querors of  England  left  their  continental  home,  there 
had  sprung  up  among  them  the  myth  of  a  divine  being, 
Beowi^.  who  overcomes  a  sea-monster,  CTrendel.  and 
then  a  lire-dragon  ;  in  the  latter  encounter  he  loses  his 
own  life.  This  Beowa  is  only  another  form  of  Frea,  the 
god  of  warmth  and  fertility,  and  his  death  symbolizes 
the  disappearance  of  summer  at  the  approach  of  winter. 
The  Germans  brought  the  myth  with  them  to  Britain, 
and  the  names  of  Beowa  and  Grendcl  became  attached 
to  certain  hills  and  lakes,  e.g.,  Beowanham,  Grendlcs- 
mere.  Around  this  mythical  germ,  or  kernel,  clustered 
subsequently  the  following  historical  incidents. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  6th  century,  about  515,  Hy- 
_gelac.  King  of  the  Geats  (inhabiting  the  modern  Gota- 
land  in  southern  Sweden),  made  an  incursion  upon  the 
Frankish  lands  along  the  lower  Ehine.  The  Frankish 
prince  Theudebert  met  him  in  desperate  battle,  and 
routed  him  utterly  by  sea  and  by  land.  Ilygelac  and 
most  of  his  followers  perished,  and  the  booty  they  were 
carrying  off  was  retaken.  Among  the  Geats  Vv^as  a 
young  ncyihew  of  Ilvgelac.  namerl  Boownlf,  n.  man  of 
extraordinary   strength    and    skill   in    swimming,    whc 


POEM    OF    BEOWULF.  23 

made  his  escape.  The  story  is  well  authenticated  ;  it  is 
narrated  by  Gregory  of  Tours  in  his  great  work,  the 
Gesta  Francorum.  The  fame  of  the  battle  and  of  its 
hero,  Beowulf,  must  have  spread  not  only  among  the 
Danes  and  Swedes  but  also  to  England,  where  it  was 
probably  commemorated  in  popuhir  songs.  In  the 
course  of  time  the  person  of  the  historic  Beowulf  be- 
came  mers^ed  in  that  of  the  fiod  Beow^aj_and  out  of  this. 


merging:  ot  mvth  and  history,  tlieiy  has  issued  onr  Bpo^ 
?ult  poem.  The  theme  was  undoubtedly  a  favorite 
among  the  Angles  and  Saxons.  Even  after  they  were 
converted  to  Christianity,  they  preserved  the  substance 
of  the  Beowulf  stories  intact.  But  expressions  savoring 
too  strongly  of  heathenism  were  expunged  one  by  one, 
and  phrases  and  passages  of  a  distinctively  Christian  or 
monkish  character  were  interpolated.  It  is  believed 
that  the  Beowulf  poem,  in  very  nearly  the  shape  in 
which  we  now  tind  it,  was  committed  to  WM'iting,  proba- 
bly  in  yorthnml^ria,  about  the  beginning  of  the  8th  cen- 
tury. The  only  existino-  T^inmiscriiit  of  it  ia  ono  of  tliA 
10th  century,  now  in  the  British  Museum.  It  is  illegi- 
ble in  several  places,  having  been  injured  by  lire  in  1731. 
The  language  is  West-Saxon.  7* 


13,  As  now  printed,  the  poem  contains  3,184  full 
verses  (lines).  It  reads  at  first  sight  like  one  homo- 
geneous piece;  but  on  closer  examination  it  reveals  nu- 
merous inconsistencies  and  interpolations.  According 
to  the  searching  investigations  of  Professor  Miillenhotf, 
it  may  be  reduced  to  two  primitive  and  independent 
stories:  first,  the  fight  between  Beowulf  and  Grendel; 
second,  the  fight  between  Beowulf  and  the  fire-dragon. 
These  two  stories  are  of  equally  ancient  origin;  but 
whether  composed  b}^  one  and  the  same  poet,  can  not  be 
made  out  with  certainty. 

The  first  of  the  primitive  stories  is  contained  in  verses 


24  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

194-836;  the  second,  in  verses  2200-3184.  All  the 
rest  of  the  poem  is,  in  Mtillenhofi''s  judgment,. nothing 
but  secondary  matter.  Even  those  sections  of  the  poem 
which  embody  the  primitive  stories  themselves  are  not 
free  from  interpolation.  Out  of  a  total  of  3184  verses, 
onl}^  930  can  rightfully  be  called  '  original,'  namely, 
490  verses  for  the  first  story,  440  for  the  second. 

Thus,  the  introduction,  1-193,  is  evidently  a  late  ad- 
dition, and  is  a  rather  clumsy  attempt  on  the  part  of 
some  secondary  verse-maker  to  set  forih  the  pedigrees, 
&c.,  of  the  chief  personages  who  figure  subsequently. 
The  first  primitive  story  begins  v.  194.  Beowulf,  thane 
of  Hygelac,  King  of  the  Geats,  learns  of  the  troubles  of 
Hrothgar,  King  of  the  Danes,  and  resolves  to  go  to  his 
relief.  Hrothgar,  namel}',  having  built  him  a  great  hall, 
called  Heorot,  is  grievously  molested  there  by  the 
nightly  attacks  of  a  water-monster,  Grendel,  who  kills 
many  of  his  best  knights  and  carries  oft'  others.  The 
description  of  tlie  voyage  of  Beowulf  and  his  com- 
panions from  Geataland  to  tlie  Danish  land,  although 
brief,  is  spirited.  They  are  graciously  received  by 
Hrothgar.  When  the  evening  banquet  is  at  an  end, 
Hrothgar  and  his  men  retire  to  the  inner  rooms,  leaving 
the  great  hall,  Avhich  is  the  scene  of  Grendel's  ravages,- 
in  charge  of  the  new-comers.  They  all  fall  asleep,  ex- 
cept the  leader.  Grendel  sallies  forth  as  usual  from  his 
den  in  the  moor,  and  coming  to  the  hall  tears  open  the 
door.  Light  flashes  like  fire  from  his  eyes.  He  laughs 
to  himself  at  the  prospect  of  gratifying  his  greed  of  hu- 
man flesh.  But  Fate,  the  '  weird'  sister,  no  longer  de- 
crees, literally  'weaves,'  that  he  shall  carry  oft'  one  of 
human  kind  after  this  night.  Beowulf,  awake,  watches 
him.  Quickly  the  monster  falls  upon  a  sleeping  Geat 
and  in  an  instant  has  torn  him  to  pieces.  The  next  to 
be  attacked  is  Beowulf.  But  the  hero,  bracing  himself 
on  his  (left)  elbow,  clutches  Grendel  with  his  right  hand. 


POEM    OF   BEOWULF.  25 

The  giant  finds  to  his  dismay  that  he  has  never  yet  en- 
countered a  man  with  such  a  grip.  He  tries  to  flee,  but 
can  not;  he  is  held  too  firmly.  Then  Beowulf  remem- 
bers his  promise  to  King  Hrothgar.  Eising  to  his  fuil 
lieight,  he  takes  still  firmer  hold.  The  giant's  claw  is 
crushed;  again  he  tries  to  flee.  The  hall  resounds  with 
the  din,  the  ale-cups  of  tbe  Danes  clatter  to  the  ground. 
It  is  a  w^onder  that  the  hall  does  not  shake  to  pieces ; 
but  it  is  fastened  too  strongly  within  and  without  wdth 
iron  bands  wrought  with  cunning  art.  Many  a  bench 
is  overturned  in  the  desperate  fray.  The  listening 
Danes  are  tilled  with  terror,  when  they  hear  the  evil  one 
utter  his  cry  of  defeat;  in  the  naive  wording  of  the 
original,  he  yells  his  dreary  death-song.  Many  a  fol- 
lower of  Beowulf  hastens  to  aid  with  his  sword.  But 
the  best  of  swords  would  be  of  no  avail  against  Gren- 
del's  enchanted  mail.  The  combatants  close  in  a  su- 
preme effort;  the  giant's  shoulder  is  wrenched  open, 
the  sinews  torn  asunder.  Victory  is  with  Beowulf. 
-Grende],  leaving  his  arm  behind,  flees  mortally  wounded 
to  his  den.  And  Beowulf,  in  token  of  victory,  hangs 
up  the  giant's    arm  and  claws  under  the  broad  roof. 

Here  the  first  story  ended,  according  to  Mullenhoff". 
It  lias  all  the  characteristics  of  an  episodic  poem ;  it  is 
abrupt,  concise,  straightforward,  and  intensely  vivid. 
For  power,  it  is  worthy  of  a  place  among  the  treasures 
of  any  people,  ancient  or  modern.  It  is  followed  in  the 
poem  by  a  number  of  incidents  and  digressions,  the 
chief  of  which  are  these.  The  next  night  there  is  a 
grand  banquet,  at  which  costly  gifts  are  bestowed  upon 
Beowulf  by  the  grateful  Hrothgar.  The  Danes  being 
left  in  charge  of  the  hall  over  night,  are  attacked  by  a 
second  raonstei',  Grendel's  mother,  who  has  come  to 
avensre  lier  son.  She  carries  off  Ilroth gar's  favorite 
councillor,  Aschere.  Once  more  Hrothgar  is  disconso- 
late.    But  Beowulf  comforts  him  by  promising  to  attack 


26  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

the  she-monster  in  her  den.  He  does  so,  and — after  an 
even  more  desperate  encounter — kills  the  mother  and 
cnts  off  and  brings  back  the  gigantic  head  of  the  dead 
Grendel  himself.  Beowulf  then  returns  to  his  home  and 
is  welcomed  by  Hygelae. 

All  this,  even  including  the  fight  between  Beowulf 
and  Grendel's  mother,  is  pronounced  by  Mlillenhotf  to 
be  mere  secondary  amplification.  Bat  certain  discov- 
eries, made  since  the  publication  of  Miillenhoff's  essay, 
put  the  episode  with  Grendel's  mother  in  a  new  light. 
It  has  been  found  that  the  story  of  Beowulf's  victory 
over  the  two  water-demons  is  contained  in  Icelandic,  in 
the  G-rettis-saqa,  composed  not  much  later  than  the  year 
1250.  The  hero  of  the  saga^  Grettir  Asmundarson,  is  a 
historical  personage  of  the  11th  century,  an  outlaw 
noted  for  his  stren^cth  and  coura2,-e.  To  him  has  been 
transferred,  by  the  imagination  of  the  Icelandic  saga- 
men,  the  entire  Beowa-myth  in  the  following  shape. 
Grettir,  in  requital  for  hospitality  shown  him,  un- 
dertakes to  defend  a  certain  house  against  the  night- 
attack  of  '  trolls' by  whom  it  had  been  disturbed.  At 
midnight  a  gigantic  woman  makes  her  appearance ;  the 
fight  which  ensues  ends  in  his  cutting  off  her  right  arm 
with  his  sword,  and  the  giantess  throws  herself  over  a 
water-fall  near  the  house  and  disappears.  Some  time 
afterwards  Grettir  takes  with  him  the  village  priest,  to 
help  in  exploring  this  water-fall.  The  priest  fastens  a 
long  rope  firmly  in  the  bank,  so  that  the  end  reaches  to 
the  water  at  the  foot  of  the  fall.  Grettir  plunges  ofi"  the 
bank  into  the  Avater,  swims  up  to  the  fall,  and  climbing 
up  some  rocks  succeeds  in  making  his  way  into  a  cavern 
behind  the  sheet  of  falling  water.  Here  he  espies  a 
huge  giant  sitting  by  the  fire.  A  desperate  fight  ensues, 
of  course,  in  which  Grettir  is  again  victorious.  He  kills 
the  giant,  and  finds  much  treasure  in  the  cave,  which  he 


POEM    OF   BEOWULF.  27 

carries  off,  together  with  the  bones  of  two  men,  the 
giant's  victims. 

The  resembhmce  between  this  saga  and  the  Old-English 
poem  is  too  great  to  be  a  mere  coincidence.  We  may 
even  say  that  the  story  of  Grettir  exphiins  one  or  two 
points  in  the  description  of  Beowulf's  encounter  with 
Grendel's  mother,  Avhich  have  been  quite  obscure  until 
now.  And  both  the  Icelandic  and  the  English  texts 
employ  one  peculiar  word  which  occurs  nowhere  else  in 
the  two  languages.  Everything  indicates  that  the  Ice- 
landic and  the  English  stor}'  proceeded  from  a  common 
original  which  contained  both  encounters.  All  readers 
of  the  Beowulf-poem  will  probably  be  glad  to  have  the 
claims  of  this  part  to  'originality'  successfully  vindi- 
cated, for  it  embodies  one  of  the  most  thrilling  episodes 
— namel}",  where  Beowulf,  weary,  stumbles  and  falls. 
The  poet  says,  simply  but  powerfully :  '  Then  sat  shf 
upon  the  hall-guest  and  drew  her  short  sword,  broad 
brown-edged  ;  she  purposed  avenging  her  bairn,  her  onl} 
oft'spring.  But  on  his  shoulder  lay  the  woven  breast- 
net,  protecting  the  body,  refusing  an  entrance  to  point 
and  to  edge.'  Beowulf's  armor  is  woven  of  links  ol 
steel,  without  any  joints  or  seams  through  which  a 
sword  or  a  dagger  might  be  thrust. 

14.  The  second  primitive  story,  v.  2200—3184,  con- 
tained in  its  original  shape  about  440  verses,  i.e.,  was 
about  equal  in  length  to  the  first.  It  was  probably 
equally  vivid.  But  the  interpolations  and  corruptions 
of  the  text  are  so  numerous  that  it  is  difficult  to  give  a 
satisfactory  statement  of  it  without  going  into  intricate 
details.  The  chief  points  seem  to  be  these.  After  the 
fall  of  Ilygelac  and  his  immediate  family  in  battle, 
Beowulf  becomes  king.  This  total  destruction  of  the 
direct  line  of  succession  is  evidently  a  reminiscence  of 
the    overthrow    and    death    of   the    historic    Ilygelac. 


28  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

Beowulf  reigns  fifty  years  with  great  renown.  One  of 
his  servants,  having  incnrred  his  anger,  flees  and  liides 
himself  in  a  cave  that  he  accidentally  discovers.  The 
cave  proves  to  he  the  den  of  a  fire-dragon,  who  is  absent 
for  the  moment,  and  is  filled  w-ith  rare  treasures.  Hop- 
ing to  propitiate  his  master,  the  servant  takes  one  of 
them,  a  costly  drinking-cup,  and  returns  home,  Beow^nlf 
with  eleven  companions  sets  out  to  attack  and  plunder 
the  cave.  But  this  time  he  is  less  successful.  On  the 
one  hand,  the  monster  is  a  j/ire-dragon,  and  therefore 
more  formidable  than  Grendel ;  on  the  other,  Beowulf 
is  well  on  in  years  and  less  vigorous.  All  his  followers 
except  one,  ."W"^"'^^^?  desert  their  master.  "Wiglaf  and 
Beowulf  together  succeed  at  last  in  killing  the  dragon, 
but  not  until  Beowulf  has  been  mortally  wounded.  Un- 
able to  explore  the  cave  himself,  he  sends  Wiglaf  in, 
who  comes  back  loaded  wdth  vessels  of  gold  and  silver. 
Making  his  dying  speech,  Beowmlf  nominates  Wiglaf 
his  successor.  The  other  knights  returning,  Wiglaf  up- 
braids them  bitterly  wnth  cowardice,  and  bids  them  pre- 
pare for  troublous  times.  Now  that  their  great  king  is 
gone,  their  enemies,  the  Franks  and  the  Frisians,  will 
not  spare  them.  This  passage  is  doubtless  a  post-factum 
prophecy  of  the  breaking-up  of  the  power  of  the  historic 
Geats.  The  wdiole  folk  is  then  convened.  The  corpse 
of  the  hero  is  laid  upon  a  stately  pyre,  the  smoke  of 
wliich  ascends  to  heaven  amid  universal  weeping  and 
wailins:. 

ISText  to  the  Nibelun gen-lied,  the  poem  of  Beowulf  has 
received  the  most  attention  from  scholars.  Editions  of 
it  are  numerous;  it  has  been  translated  into  English 
prose  by  Kemble,  and  into  modern  German  alliteration 
by  Grein.  Yet  despite  all  such  efforts,  much  of  the 
poem  still  remains  and  will  probably  always  remain  ob- 
scure. Purely  descriptive  and  narrative  passages  do  not 
offer  serious  difficulty.     But  the  genealogies,  the  epic 


FINNSBURG,  WALDERE,  WiDSlTH.  29 

'asides,' and  the  passages  where  an  originally  heathen 
conception  or  allusion  has  been  effaced  to  make  room 
for  some  monkish  moralizing,  are  enough  to  puzzle  the 
wits  and  weary  the  patience  of  the  best  scholars. 

15.  Three  other  heroic  poems  (or  fragments)  remain 
to  be  mentioned.  The  Fkiht  of  Finnsburq  commemorates 
an  episode  wdi'ich  is  alluded  to  in  the  Beowulf-ipoem. 
sixty  Danes  with  their  leaders,  Hnaef  and  Ilengcst,  while 
lodged  in  the  castle  of  Finn,  King  of  the  Frisians,  are 
treacherously  attacked  by  their  host.  Hnaef  falls,  but 
the  Danes  hold  out  for  Hve  days,  when  a  truce  is  made. 
But  it  is  not  kept  long.  The  fighting  is  renewed  and 
Heugest  and  Finn  both  perish.  The  beginning  of  the 
piece  is  very  graphic  in  its  abruptness;  it  describes  the 
first  onslaught.  Then  exclaimed  the  king  (Ilengest), 
young  in  battle  :  That  is  not  the  dawn  coming  from  the 
east,  neither  is  it  the  flight  of  a  dragon,  nor  the  blaze  of 
the  horns  of  the  hall.  Thev  are  coming  to  surnrise  us. 
The  birds  are  singing,  the  cricket  chirps,  the  shields  ring, 
shield  answers  to  arrow.  IsTow  the  full  moonshineth  be- 
hind clouds,  now  start  up  deeds  of  woe  that  the  hate  of 
this  folk  is  minded  to  do.  But  arouse  you,  my  warriors, 
lift  up  your  hands,  be  mindful  of  your  might,  figiit  in 
the  front,  be  heroes  ! 

The  fragment  called  Waldere,  in  High  German  '  "Wal- 
ter,' is  connected  with  the  well  known  continental  epic 
of  Walther  of  Acpiitaine,  preserved  in  a  Latin-hexameter 
version  of  the  10th  century.  Waltlier  is  eloping  with 
his  bride,  Hiklegund,  from  the  court  of  Attila,  King  of 
the  Huns,  when  he  is  intercepted  and  attacked  by  Hagen 
and  Gunther  (characters  that  reappear  in  another  form 
in  the  Nibelangenliecl).  The  English  Waldere  proves  that 
the  conquerors  of  Britain  were  familiar  with  the  cycle  of 
Theodcric  of  Bern  (Verona). 

The  most  interesting  of  these  minor  pieces  is  the  one 
called    Widstth,    or    'Traveler'    (literally  '  wide-farer '). 


30  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

'HCn  composition  it  is  probably  the  oldest  extant  specimen 
Lof  Anglo-Saxon  verse.  The  chief  person,  Widsith,  is  a 
type  of  the  restless,  roaming  poet-knight  of  those  early 
days,  singing  of  his  wanderings.  He  tells  of  Angles  and 
Saxons,  Goths,  Swabians,  Langobards,  and  Biirgundians. 
What  makes  the  poem  peculiarly  interesting  is  that  it 
speaks  of  many  of  these  peoples,  notably  the  Angles,  as 
still  in  their  early  homes  before  setting  out  on  their  mi- 
gration over  the  Roman  empire. 

Of  Anglo-Saxon  heroic  poetry  in  general  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  its  personages  and  events  all  antedate  the 
conquest  of  Britain.  JSTowhere  do  we  iind  an  allusion  to 
this  great  event,  or  to  the  exploits  by  which  it  must  have 
been  attended.  In  other  words,  although  the  poems 
themselves  were  put  into  shape  on  English  soil,  the 
themes  must  have  been  brougjit  from  the  continent. 
This  phenomenon  has  not  yet  been  sufficiently  accounted 
for.  Probably  we  shall  never  be  able  to  account  for  it, 
unless  manuscripts  be  discovered  containing  poems  now 
unknown. 


CHAPTER  y. 

CONVERSION    TO     CHRISTIANITY — BEDE,     ALDHELM,    BONIFACE. 

16.  The  conversion  of  the  Angles  and  Saxons  to 
Christianity  is  the  first  great  event  in  their  history,  our 
knowledge  of  which  rests  on  a  satisfactory  basis. 

It  is  the  office  of  the  political  and  ecclesiastical  histo- 
rian to  discuss  this  movement  in  its  details.  But  the  his- 
torian of  our  literature  is  called  upon  to  show  at  least 
liow  the  conversion  affected  the  habits  of  thou2:ht  of  the 
people,  and  gave  to  it  new  motives,  new  hopes  and  fears, 
new  standards  of  right  and  wrong,  and  new  forms  of  ex- 
pression. 


BRITISH,  IRISH,  SCOTCH  CHURCH.  31 

The  Keltic  inhabitants  of  England  had  accepted  Chris- 
tianity in  the  times  of  the  Romans.  Ireland  was  con- 
verted in  the  5tli  century.  The  chnrch  of  Ireland  be- 
came in  the  course  of  the  6th  and  7th  centuries  conspic- 
uous for  zeal  and  learning.  Among  its  leaders  maj'  be 
mentioned  Columba,  founder  of  the  celebrated  monastery 
of  lona  (one  of  the  Hebrides)  ;  Gallus,  founder  of  the 
still  more  celebrated  monastery  of  St.  Gall  (Switzerland), 
and  Colambanus,  founder  of  Bobbio  (Piedmont).  But 
the  Irish  church  was  viewed  with  some  jealousy  and 
mistrust  by  the  general  Western  church.  It  was  charged 
with  certain  quasi  heretical  tenets,  and  with  want  of  suf- 
ficient deference  to  the  supremacy  of  the  pope.  As  to 
the  Britains,  although  they  had  been  converted  as  early 
as  the  3d  century,  we  know  but  little  of  their  church, 
and  that  little  does  not  inspire  respect.  It  seems  to  have 
been,  a  prey  to  ecclesiastical  and  political  dissensions; 
the  British  rulers  were  given  up  to  intrigues  and  degrad- 
ing vices.  Yet,  feeble  as  it  was,  the  British  church 
might  have  developed  a  healthier  life,  had  it  not  been 
hopelessly  ruined,  together  with  the  British  people,  by 
the  Anglo-Saxon  conquest.  At  the  end  of  the  6th  cen- 
tury a  line  drawn  due  south  from  Abercorn  (near  Edin- 
burgh) to  "Weymouth  (in  Dorsetshire),  would  have  repre- 
sented not  unfairly  the  two  great  divisions  of  the  island. 
All  to  the  east,  Germanic  and  heathen  ;  all  to  the  west, 
Keltic  and  Christian,  in  name  at  least.  The  Keltic  in- 
habitants of  the  greater  part  of  Scotland  had  been  con- 
verted in  the  6th  century  by  missionaries  from  Ireland. 

The  mission  of  converting  the  Angles  and  Saxons  was 
conducted  from  two  sides  simultaneously:  from  the 
north,  by  Irish-Scotch  missionaries  ;  from  the  south,  by 
missionaries  sent  direct  from  Rome.  In  the  early  part 
of  the  year  597,  Augustine  and  his  companions  landed  on 
the  shores  of  Kent.  They  had  been  sent  by  the  then  pope, 
Gregory  the  Great.     Ethelberht,  ruler  of  Kent,  accepted 


32  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

the  new  doctrine.  Canterbury  became  the  center  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  propaganda,  and  Augustine  was  conse- 
crated first  archbishop.  On  the  north  the  district  of 
Northumbria  was  overrun  by  missionaries  from  lona, 
chief  among  whom  was  the  celebrated  Aidan.  The 
monastery  of  Lindisfarn  (subsequently  called  Holy  Isle), 
not  far  from  the  mouth  of  the  Tweed,  became  the  centre 
of  the  northern  propaganda.  The  middle  portion  of  the 
countr}^,  Mercia,  under  King  Penda,  held  out  the  longest. 
But  Penda's  defeat  by  Oswi,  King  of  l^orthumbria,  in 
655,  sealed  the  fate  of  heathenism.  -Henceforth  there 
was  but  one  God  acknowledged  in  England,  Scotland, 
"Wales,  and  Ireland,  but  one  church,  and  but  one  faith. 
The  worship  of  Thor  and  of  Othin  once  broken,  its  frag- 
ments were  soon  swept  away,  or  lingered  only  as  idle, 
harmless  superstitions  among  the  uneducated  h^wer 
classes.  The  conversion  was  not  only  rapid,  but  thor- 
ough ;  so  thorough,  indeed,  that  in  little  more  than  a 
hundred  years,  say  about  the  beginning  of  the  8th  cen- 
tury, England  became  the  foremost  branch  of  the  church 
in  western  Europe.  The  prestige  and  influence  of  the 
Irish  church  was  already  on  the  decline.  For  this  there 
were  several  reasons.  The  Irish  princes  were  at  odds 
among  themselves,  and  the  island  became  a  prey  to  Kor- 
wegian  and  Danish  pirates. 

17.  During  the  8th  and  9th  centuries  the  doctrines  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  became  more  and  more  sys- 
tematized and  its  organization  perfected.  In  fact  it 
ceased  to  be  for  the  most  part  a  missionary  church,  and 
assumed  gradually  the  character  of  a  highly  organized 
corporation  for  the  management  of  public  and  private 
morals,  not  infrequently  also  of  politics.  The  aim  of  the 
church,  at  least  in  western  Europe,  was  steadily  fixed 
upon  the  concentration  of  its  power  in  the  hands  of  the 
pope,  ajid  upon  the  obliteration  of  everything  that  sa- 


POLICY    OF    THE    CHURCH.  83 

vorecl  of  heresj^,  schism,  and  national  or  local  dissent. 
Italy,  Spain,  France,  Western  Germany,  and  the  British 
Isles  were  made  distinctively  i^o»?rt?i-Catholic. 

ISTot  even  the  power  of  the  church  could  eradicate  race- 
hatred. In  Great  Britain,  for  instance,  the  Saxon  and 
the  Kelt  continued  to  look  upon  each  other  as  foes.  The 
process  of  conquering  and  Germanizing  the  surviving 
Britons  in  western  and  southwestern  England  and  in 
Wales  went  on  for  centuries.  In  the  north  the  Gaels 
were  crowded  farther  and  farther  back  into  the  High- 
lands. Yet,  as  Christians,  all  the  races  and  inhabitants 
of  the  British  Isles  acknowledged  allegiance  to  Rome 
and  in  so  far  were  on  a  footing  of  equality.  Moreover, 
they  were  united  by  at  least  one  bond,  viz.,  the  Latin 
church-ritual.  To  us  in  the  19th  century  this  may  not 
seem  much.  But  it  behooves  us  to  do  justice  to  the  past. 
Whatever  views  we  may  hold  of  the  church  of  Rome  as 
it  now  is,  we  must  not  forget  that  it  was  the  mainstay  of 
society  and  of  culture  from  the  3d  century  to  the  13th. 
It  did  what  no  other  power  could  have  done,  it  taught 
the  peoples  of  Europe  that  they  were  brothers  before 
God.  Its  methods  and  practices  may  not  seem  to  us  per- 
fectly proper.  But  it  never  for  an  instant  lost  sight  of 
its  mission,  it  never  forgot  that  it  was  the  divinely  ap- 
pointed arbiter  between  king  and  king,  between  nation 
and  nation.  It  summoned  rulers  and  subjects  before  its 
tribunal  and  made  them  understand  that  there  were  such 
things  as  international  justice  and  international  sympa- 
thies. From  the  3d  century  to  the  13th,  then,  the  work 
of  the  church  was  one  of  beneficence.  But  from  the 
13th  century  on,  we  observe  symptoms  of  discontent, 
which  culminated  in  the  Protestant  Reformation  of  the 
16th  century. 

It  does  not  seem  to  have  cost  the  Anglo-Saxon  people 
much  of  a  struggle  to  give  up  their  heathen  gods. 
What  opposition  there  was,  came  chiefly  from  a  few 


34  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

princes  who  distrusted  the  missionaries  because  they 
were  foreigners.  The  gods  of  Germanic  mythok^gy 
were  too  crude  and  vague  to  maintain  themselves  before 
the  simplicity  and  unity  of  the  Christian  creed.  Be- 
sides, the  old  mythology  oiFered  no  well  developed  sys- 
tem of  ethics.  It  recognized  little  virtue  beyond  brute 
force  and  brute  valor.  It  was  incapable  of  suggesting 
high  ideals  of  daily  life.  To  abjure  Othin  and  worship 
Christ,  then,  was  a  comparatively  slight  task.  The 
diihculty  lay  on  the  other  side,  in  adopting  the  ritual. 
The  early  Britons  had  accepted  Roman  })riests  and  a 
Latin  ritual  as  a  matter  of  course,  for  Latin  was  the 
language  of  their  military  rulers.  But  the  Angles  and 
Saxons  recognized  no  such  supremacy.  Latin  was  to 
them  a  wholly  foreign  tongue,  and — unlike  the  Britons 
— they  had  never  had  a  separate  class  of  priests.  They 
were  called  upon  not  only  to  worship  a  new  God,  but  to 
worship  him  publicly  in  a  language  which  they  could 
not  speak  nor  even  understand,  and  to  consent  to  the 
establishment  of  a  close  corporation  of  priests,  of  whom 
many,  if  not  most,  were  at  the  outset  foreigners.  Yet 
hierarchy  and  ritual  were  matters  in  which  the  church 
could  not  aftbrd  to  make  concessions.  They  were  estab- 
lished. Precisely  in  what  way  and  with  what  prompt- 
ness, we  are  unable  to  ascertain.  All  we  can  say  is  that 
through  the  adoption  of  Christianity  Latin  became  once 
more  a  language  of  England.  It  was  the  sole  acknowl- 
edged and  official  language  of  the  church  in  all  matters 
of  doctrine  and  ritual,  and  in  intercourse  between  Eng- 
land and  the  papal  see.  As  the  church  was  in  those 
days  the  sole  depository  of  learning,  Latin  became  also 
the  vehicle  of  imparting  knowledge.  All  the  teachers 
were  members  of  the  clergy  or  of  religious  orders,  and 
all  the  schools  were  cathedral  or  cloister-schools.  Text- 
books were  in  Latin,  and  most  of  the  pupils  were  candi- 
dates for  the  priesthood.     Throughout  the  Middle  Ages 


LATIN    RE-ESTABLISHED    IN    ENGLAND.  85 

the  cliiircli  claimed  jurisdiction  in  cases  relating  to  mar- 
riage and  divorce,  parentage,  church  property,  and  the 
validity  of  oaths.  Bishops  exercised  the  functions  of 
judges,  and  in  their  courts,  officers  and  counsel  were  ec- 
clesiastics. Bulls  of  the  pope  aud  decrees  of  the  ecu- 
menical councils,  together  with  the  decisions  of  the 
pope's  court  of  appeals,  supplied  the  largest  share  of  the 
ecclesiastical  law  and  rule  of  procedure.  As  a  matter 
of  course,  Latin  was  the  language  used  in  these  episco- 
pal courts.  What  has  been  said  of  England  will  apply 
with  even  greater  force  to  the  rest  of  Europe.  We  can 
watch  this  building-up  of  an  elaborate  system  of  church 
jurisprudence  simultaneously  all  over  Europe,  until  it 
assumed  definite  shape  in  the  Corpus  Juris  Canonici. 
An  example  being  thus  set  by  the  church,  we  need  not 
be  surprised  to  see  the  political  rulers  of  England  enact- 
ing and  codifying  their  secular  laws — purely  Germanic 
in  character — in  a  Latin  form.  Deeds  for  the  convey- 
ance and  leasing  of  property,  royal  edicts,  municipal 
charters,  and  other  private  and  public  documents  were 
drawn  up  in  Latin. 

The  details  of  this  change  may  be  left  to  the  political 
historian  ;  its  general  significance  for  the  history  of  our 
literature  may  be  summed  up  in  a  few  words.  Such 
wholesale  use  of  a  foreign  idiom  drew  a  sharp  dividing 
line,  which  had  never  before  existed,  between  the  learned 
and  the  unlearned.  On  the  one  side  there  was  a  small 
class  of  secular  and  clerical  dignitaries  and  officials ;  on 
the  other,  the  great  mass  of  peasants  and  artizans. 
Both  classes  spoke,  in  every-day  matters,  the  vernacular. 
But  the  former  class  had  a  jargon  all  to  itself,  a  monkish 
book-Latin,  of  which  the  latter  class  had  no  understand- 
ing. Thus  Latin  came  to  be  regarded  as  more  learned, 
more  elegant,  more  literary.  The  folk-speech,  even  at 
its  best,  could  not  claim  equality  ;  it  was  always  more 
or  less  open  to  the  charge  of  being  vulgar.     This  state 


36  ANGLO-SAXON    LITERATURE. 

of  opinion  lasted  in  England  until  tlie  Reformation  in 
the  16th  century,  and  even  later.  Whoever  wished  to 
write  as  a  scholar  for  scholars  must  perfoi'oe  write  in 
Latin.  English  might  he  good  enough  for  peasants, 
v.orking-men,  soldiers,  even  for  writers  of  verse  and 
popular  tales,  but  it  was  not  good  enough  for  science. 
Lord  Bacon  evidently  thought  that  it  was  not  in  the 
17th  century. 

This  prevalence  of  Latin  was  not  an  unmixed  evil.  It 
established  an  international  language,  as  the  church  had 
established  an  international  code  of  manners  and  morals. 
Men  of  letters  of  different  countries  could  converse  and 
correspond  with  one  another.  The  evil  lay  chiefly  in  its 
retarding  the  growth  of  the  popular  tongue.  The 
church  everywhere  absorbed  the  best  talents,  and  the 
folk-speech  was  left  to  be  cultivated  by  men  of  inferior 
ability.  Herein  England  will  compare  most  favorably 
with  continental  nations,  at  least  in  the  times  anterior  to 
the  N^orman  Conquest.  Kings  and  bishops  in  England 
encouraged  the  translation  of  useful  works  from  Latin 
into  English,  and  also  the  composition  of  religious 
pieces  in  English.  The  result  was  that  the  vernacular 
literature  of  Eugland  from  750  to  1050  exceeded  in  vol- 
ume and  imjoortance  that  of  France  and  that  of  Ger- 
-jinany. 

18.  It  was  stated,  near  the  close  of  §  5,  that  English 
thought  and  speech,  even  in  the  earlier  heathen  period, 
was  marked  by  a  tone  of  soberness  or  sadness.  This 
tone  was  confirmed  and  deepened  by  the  conversion  to 
Christianity.  In  becoming  Christians,  the  Angles  and 
Saxons,  it  is  true,  did  not  immediately  cease  to  be  pug- 
nacious. There  were  still  feuds  enough  between  neigh- 
bor and  neighbor,  between  prince  and  prince.  The  so- 
called  Heptarchy  might  almost  be  called  a  period  of  an- 
archy.    But  as  time  wore  on,  the  supreme  power  was 


GENERAL   FEATURES    OF   CHRISTIAN    POETRY.  37 

gradually  concenti-ated  in  the  royal  family  of  Wessex. 
The  habits  of  the  folk  became  peaceful ;  so  peaceful,  in 
fact,  that  the  laud  was  barely  able  to  defend  itself  from 
the  Danes.  In  |>roportion,  then,  as  the  primitive  war- 
like zeal  of  the  folk  abated,  its  tendency  to  melancholy 
manifested  itself  more  strongly  in  its  literature.  The 
disposition  assumes  so  many  shapes  that  it  is  impossible 
to  characterize  it  in  a  sinarle  word.  'Melancholy'  is 
perhaps  too  strong.  We  may  call  it  'brooding,'  or 
'  yearning,'  or  '  plaintive.'  A  musician  would  probably 
speak  of  the  religious  poetry  (about  to  be  mentioned)  as 
composed  in  the  minor  key.  Not  only  is  its  aim  didactic — 
religious  poetry  can  scarcely  be  otherwise — but  it  dwells 
upon  the  gentle  and  contemplative  moods  of  the  soul, 
rather  than  upon  the  impassioned.  Hence  it  prefers 
sentiments  and  reflections  to  deeds.  If  we  compare,  for 
instance,  our  early  versions  of  the  legends  of  the  saints 
with  the  Latin  originals  from  which  they  were  adapted, 
we  shall  perceive  that  the  English  poet  has  usually 
abridged  the  action  of  the  story  and  sketched  to  exces- 
sive lengtli  those  passages  in  which  the  saint  gives  vent 
to  his  feelings.  The  earliest  poems,  e.r/.,  the  metrical 
paraphrase  of  Genesis,  §  21,  are  comparatively  free  from 
such  diffuseness.  But  the  later  we  come  down,  the  more 
of  it  we  shall  find.  And  hand  in  hand  with  sentiment- 
ality of  tone  goes  a  fondness  for  such  rhetorical  forms 
as  Visions,  Dreams,  Allegories,  and  the  like.  Medieval 
literature  in  general  exhibits  a  great  variety  of  visions 
and  allegories,  written  by  ecclesiastics  of  all  nations. 
But  nowhere  does  this  sort  of  writing  a[>pear  to  have 
taken  such  firm  hold  of  the  popular  imagination  as  in 
England.  Other  European  nations,  e.g.,  France  and 
Germany,  have  produced  allegorical  and  diffusely  didactic 
poets ;  but  England  alone  pays  them  peculiar  honor. 
The  taste,  once  acquired,  has  withstood  the  Norman 
Conquest,  the  Italian  Renaissance,  and  the   Protestant 

158892 


38  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

Reformation,  aucl  subsists  at  the  present  day.  We  find, 
in  the  14th  century,  the  author  of  Piers  Plowman  divid- 
ing the  honors  with  Chaucer;  in  the  IGth,  the  Faery 
Queen  overshadows  every  rival ;  in  the  ITth,  Pilgrim's 
Progress  has  no  rival  but  Paradise  Lost.  In  the  18th 
century  no  one  poet  predominates;  and  the  acknowl- 
edged autocrat  of  letters  is  Dr.  Johnson,  not  a  poet  at 
all  but  a  moral  philosopher.  In  our  own  time  we  ob- 
serve no  less  a  critic  than  Matthew  Arnold  asserting  that 
our  greatest  [)oet  after  Shakespeare  and  Milton  is  Words- 
worth. Many,  perhaps  most,  of  us  will  dissent  from 
this.  Yet  the  mere  utterance  of  the  opinion  is  signifi- 
cant; it  reveals  the  innate  bias  of  the  English  mind,  in- 
fluencing, some  of  us  would  say,  warping  the  judgment 
of  our  most  cultured  critic. 

Extreme  soberness  of  tone  was  not  the  only  fault  of 
our  pre-Norman  literature.  It  was  Jacking  in  color,  in 
grace,  in  ability  to  catch  the  more  delicate  play  of 
thouo:ht  and  character.  And  it  was  also  lacking  in 
what  is  called  the  '  historic  sense.'  Having  led  for  cen- 
turies a  life  of  comparative  isolation,  the  irJiabitants  of 
England  were,  by  the  middle  of  the  11th  century,  in 
danger  of  vegetating  in  insular  exclusiveness.  They 
took  no  direct  active  part  in  the  general  movement  of 
continental  politics.  They  were  absorbed  in  domestic 
affairs,  and  seemed  to  be  disengaging  themselves  little 
by  little  from  the  great  family  ot  nations.  In  these  two 
respects  the  changes  wrought  by  the  Korman  Conquest 
were  not  merely  salutary  but  even  necessary.  For  the 
iN'ormans  brought  with  them  from  France  a  fondness  for 
light  literature,  and  also  a  disposition  to  enter  into  for- 
eign politics  and  to  treat  the  facts  and  phases  of  politi- 
cal life  in  a  spirit  of  philosophic  inquiry. 

19,  The  chief  seat  of  the  activity  of  the  church  in 
the   8th   century   was   in    Korthumbria,    although    the 


BEDE.  S9 

archbisllop  of  Canterbury  was  primate  of  England. 
Archbishop  Theodore  and  Abbot  Hadrian  founded  the 
celebrated  cloister-school  of  Canterbury  near  the  end  of 
the  7th  century.  One  of  the  pupils  of  the  school,  Aid- 
helm,  subsequently  bishop  of  Sherborn,  directed  the 
studies  in  the  school  of  Malmesbury,  in  Wessex.  About 
this  time  Benedict  Biscop  established  the  schools  of 
Wearmouth  and  Yarrow,  in  Northumbria,  which  were 
soon  to  overshadow  all  the  others.  Bede,  the  most  illus- 
trious name  in  the  annals  of  the  early  English  church, 
was  born  at  Wearmouth  in  672,  and  was  educated  partly 
there,  partly  at  Yarrow.  His  whole  life  was  passed  in 
these  two  schools,  in  learning,  teaching,  and  preaching. 
He  never  rose  to  a  higher  rank  than  that  of  simple 
priest.  He  died,  735,  at  the  age  of  62,  with  the  well 
earned  reputation  of  being  the  most  learned  man  of  his 
times.  His  life  was  in  the  ordinary  sense  uneventful. 
To  quote  his  own  words  :  "  I  spent  my  whole  life  in  the 
same  monastery,  and  while  attentive  to  the  rules  of  my 
order  and  the  service  of  the  church,  my  constant  pleas- 
ure lay  in  teaching,  in  learning,  or  in  writing."  Yet  his 
fame  was  European  ;  more  than  any  other  one  man 
probabl}'  did  he  influence  the  literature  of  the  church. 
His  scholars  numbered  upwards  of  600,  yet  he  found 
time  to  compose  forty-five  treatises.  The  founders 
of  the  monastery  having  provided  a  tolerably  good  li- 
brary of  Latin  manuscripts,  he  had  an  opportunity  of 
acquiring  a  taste  for  Cicero  and  Seneca,  Ovid  and  Lucre- 
tius. From  the  followers  of  Archbishop  Theodore  of 
Canterbury,  who  was  a  Greek  of  Tarsos,  he  even  ac- 
quired some  knowledge  of  the  Greek  language,  which 
was  a  very  rare  accomplishment  in  those  days.  The  en- 
cyclopedic knowledge  which  he  concentrated  in  himself 
and  imparted  freely  to  his  pupils,  or  else  stored  up  in 
his  writings,  is  justly  regarded  as  the  foundation  of 
scholarship  in  England. 


40  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

No  less  conspicuous  than  his  learning  was  his  per- 
sonal character.  It  was  so  honorable  and  so  attractive 
that  it  won  for  him  the  designation  of  "Venerable 
Bede."  There  is  nothing  brighter  in  the  early  history 
of  England  than  the  sight  of  this  simple,  sweet-tempered 
priest,  filled  with  love  for  his  fellow-men,  gifted  with  an 
intelligence  far  ahead  of  his  times,  toiling  on  patiently 
and  modestly,  3^ear  after  year,  in  the  least  obtrusive  of 
vocations. 

Bede  was  fond  of  his  mother-tongue  and  its  verse. 
Lying  on  his  death-bed  he  ejaculated,  in  alliterative 
lines :  Before  the  inevitable  journey  no  thought  can 
there  be  more  prudent  than  that  man  must  consider, 
before  his  departure,  what  of  good  or  of  evil  may  be 
adjudged  to  his  soul  after  the  day  of  death.  Whether 
the  lines  were  of  his  own  composition  or  not,  is  left  un- 
decided in  the  account  of  his  death,  written  by  his  friend 
and  disciple,  Cuthbert.  The  same  account  adds  that  on 
the  very  day  of  his  death  he  was  at  work  upon  a  trans- 
lation of  the  gospel  of  John  into  English,  dictating  to 
an  amanuensis.  Towards  evening  the  young  scribe 
said:  -"There  is  yet  one  more  sentence."  "Write 
quickly,"  replied  the  dying  man.  "It  is  finished  now, 
at  last."  "You  speak  truth,"  said  the  master,  "all  is 
finished."  And  his  spirit  passed  away,  singing  the  Glo- 
ria in  Excelsis. 

None  of  Bede's  writings  in  the  vernacular  have  been 
preserved  ;  at  least,  none  in  an  independent  shape,  foi*  it 
is  possible  that  the  above-mentioned  rendering  of  the 
fourth  gospel  may  have  been  recast  subsequently  and 
merged  in  the  general  collection  of  gospel-translations, 
see  §  28.  The  works  of  Bede  that  we  possess  are  in 
Latin.  Those  which  treat  of  biblical  exeo;esis  and  dos^- 
matic  theology  may  be  passed  over  here.  But  there  is 
one  of  his  works  which  will  interest  directly  every 
English-speaking  man,  viz.,  his  Historia  Ecclesiae  Gcntis 


bede's  historia.  41 

Anglorum,  a  moderate-sized  volume  narrating  the  story 
of  the  conversion  of  the  Angles  and  Saxons.     Its  style 

1  is  clear,  concise,  forcible,  and  remarkably  elegant  for  the 
8th  century.  It  is  the  chief,  almost  the  only,  source  of 
our  knowledge  of  the  period  to  which  it  relates,  and  it 
is  to  this  day  a  very  readable  book.  The  simplicity  and 
earnestness  of  the  author  are  stamped  on  every  page. 
But  not  all  the  parts  of  the  work  are  of  equal  value.  It 
is  divided  into  five  books.  The  first  twenty-two  chap- 
ters of  Book  I  give  a  brief  resume  of  the  history  of  the 
island  from  the  invasion  by  Julius  Caesar  down  to  the 

.^coming  of  Augustine  in  597.  They  are  a  mixture  of 
fact  and  fable,  the  latter  element  predominating.  The 
facts  they  contain  are  of  no  value  to  us,  because  our 
knowledge  of  them  is  now  derived  from  independent 
and  better  sources.  Bede  borrowed  most  of  his  state- 
ments concerning  the  Romans  from  Orosius,  see  §  26. 
His  account  of  the  Britons  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  con- 
quest is  based  upon  a  Latin  treatise,  usually  called  Gil- 
das,  after  its  supposed  author.  This  Gildas  is  of  such 
questionable  antecedents  that  we  can  put  no  faith  in  it. 
Bede's  real  work  begins  with  the  twenty-third  chapterif 
His  account  of  the  mission  of  Aua-ustine  and  all  that 
follows  is  undoubtedly  authentic.  It  was  based  upon 
documents  then  existing  in  England,  and  upon  copies  of 
papal  documents,  made  for  him  by  one  of  his  friends  in 
the  archives  at  Rome.  The  work  ends  with  a  survey  off 
the  organization  of  the  Englisli  church  in  the  year  731, 
and  a  list  of  the  author's  writings.  A  later  hand  has 
appended  a  meagre  list  of  church  events,  names  of  bish- 
ops, &c.,  year  by  year,  from  731-766.  At  the  end  of  one  \ 
of  the  manuscripts  of  the  Historia  are  to  be  found  the 
Northumbrian  verses  by  Caedmon,  mentioned  §  11,  20. 
Although  Bede's  work  is  in  the  main  genuine  history, 
it  is  not  wholly  free  from  the  superstitions  in  vogue  in 
the  Middle  Ages.     Even  Books  IV  and  V,  which  treat 


42  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

• 

of  persons  and  events  contemporary  with  or  just  prior  to 
Bede  himself,  are  not  wanting  in  'visions'  and  'won- 
ders.' It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  story  of  Caedmon, 
see  §  20,  is  preceded  and  followed  in  Book  IV  by  other 
stories  equally  marvelous. 

One  of  Bede's  contemporaries  has  been  already  men- 
tioned, Aldhelm,  Bishop  of  Sherborn  and  teacher  in  the 
school  at  Malmesbury.  Aldhelm  lived  from  about  650 
to  709.  His  reputation  for  learning  was  inferior  only  to 
that  of  Bede.  Some  of  his  works  are  in  prose,  others  in 
verse ;  they  are  all  of  a  religious  nature  except  one,  a 
collection  of  one  hundred  riddles,  imitated  from  the  rid- 
dles of  Symposius,  a  late  Latin  writer  of  the  4th  or  5th 
ceutur3^  Although  composed  chiefly  for  entertainment, 
Aldhelm's  riddles  are  rather  serious  in  tone.  They  are 
written  in  various  metres,  having  been  designed  by  their 
author  to  serve  as  illustrations  of  Latin  prosodv.  For 
the  connection  between  them  and  the  English  riddles  of 
Cynewulf,  see  §  23. 

Aldhelm  is  said  to  have  been  an  excellent  poet  in  his 
mother-tongue,  but  none  of  his  English  pieces  have  been 
preserved.  By  way  of  compensation  we  find  allitera- 
tion in  many  of  his  Latin  verses.  He  was  also  fond  of  dis- 
jdaying  his  knowledge  of  Greek  by  interlarding  his  Latin 
with  phrases  evidently  reproduced  from  Greek  idioms. 
This  trait  of  pedantry  is  worth  noting;  it  shows  how 
zealously  Greek  was  studied  at  that  early  day  in  England, 
and  it  will  moreover  prepare  us  for  recognizing  the  phe- 
nomenon that  some  of  the  legendary  poems  of  the  8th, 
9th,  or  10th  centuries,  in  the  vernacular  of  England, 
see  §  25,  were  based  upon  primitive  Greek  versions  and 
not  upon  secondary  Latin  ones. 

Besides  the  great  schools  already  mentioned,  there  was 
one  scarcely  less  noted,  at  York.  Among  the  teachers  here 
w^as  Bede'syoungfriend  Ecgberht.  And  in  this  school  was 
trained  the  celebrated  AJouin,  who  afterwards  removed 


BONIFACE.  43 

to  France  and  became  the  bosom  friend  and  adviser  of 
Charlemagne,  and  his  assistant  in  the  great  plan  of  re- 
forming education  throughout  Europe.  Another  famous 
Englishman  was  Winfrid,  better  known  by  his  Latin 
name  of  St.  Boniface.  After  teaching  in  several  schools 
in  his  native  country,  he  entered  upon  his  missionary 
labors  in  Bavaria,  Thuringia,  Ilesse,  Saxony,  and  Fries- 
land.  In  732  he  was  consecrated  archbishop  and  primate 
of  Germany.  lie  established  the  bishoprics  of  Ratisbon, 
Erfurt,  Paderborn,  Wiirzburg,  Salzburg,  and  others,  and 
also  the  famous  abbey  of  Fulda.  It  was  lie  who,  in  752, 
at  the  deposition  of  Chilperic,  the  last  of  the  Merowings, 
consecrated  his  deposer,  Pepin  the  Short,  King  of  the 
Franks.  The  subsequent  development  of  the  English 
church  is  a  matter  of  general  history.  Enough  has  been 
said  in  this  place  to  illustrate  the  promptness  and  thor- 
oughness of  the  conversion. 


CHAPTER  YI. 

CHRISTIAN   POETRY — CAEDMON — GENESIS,    EXODUS,   DANIEL. 

30,  The  Christian  poetry  of  early  England  is  scarcely 
less  interesting  than  the  heathen  ;  it  is  much  more  abund- 
ant, and  is  easier  to  interpret.  Like  the  heathen  poetry, 
it  is  written  in  alliterative  verse.  For  the  survival  of 
heathen  notions,  see  §  6.  For  the  creeping-in  of  rime, 
see  §  9,  §  30.  The  poets  were  sometimes  monks,  some- 
times laymen.  We  have  grounds  for  suspecting  that 
more  than  one  worldly  singer,  growing  weary  of  wander- 
ing and  fighting,  found  refuge  and  rest  within  the 
cloister-walls  and  sang  there  of  Moses  and  Abraham  as 
he  had  formerly  sung  of  Theoderic  and  Wieland. 

First  in  interest,  probably  also  in  time,  is  the  poem 


44  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

called  Genesis.  It  is  contained  in  the  Ms.  Junian  XL,  of 
the  Bodleian  library,  Oxford,  together  with  three  others, 
called  respectively  Exodus.,  Daniel,  and  Christ  and  Satan. 
All  four  poems  were  formerly  ascribed  to  one  author, 
namely  Caedmon.  But  at  present  scholars  are  agreed 
upon  the  following  points.  First,  that  Christ  and  Satan 
is  much  later,  both  in  penmanship  and  style,  than  the 
other  three,  and  mnst  be  assigned  to  a  different  era. 
Second,  that  Genesis,  Exodus,  and  Daniel,  althongh  writ- 
ten in  the  manuscript  by  one  and  the  same  scribe,  ex- 
hibit too  much  diversity  of  style  and  language  to  be  the 
work  of  the  same  author.  The  authorship  of  Exodus 
and  Daniel  is  generally  conceded  to  be  unknown.  The 
only  point  not  yet  detinitively  settled  is  the  authorship 
of  Genesis. 

The  following  story  is  told  by  Bede,  in  his  Historia, 
Bk.  IV,  ch.  24.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  7th  century 
(not  many  years,  therefore,  before  the  birth  of  Bede  him- 
self) there  lived  near  the  cloister  of  Streoneshalh  (better 
known  by  the  subsequent  Danish  name  Whitby)  in 
ITorthumbria,  a  man,  well  on  in  years,  named  Caedmon. 
The  gift  of  song  had  been  denied  him,  so  that,  when  at 
table  the  harp  Avas  passed  to  him  in  turn,  he  was  wont 
to  retire  in  shame.  One  evening,  after  being  thus  dis- 
graced, he  fell  asleep  in  the  stable  of  wdiich  lie  had 
charge.  Then  appeared  to  him  in  his  dream  a  vision, 
and  a  voice  called  upon  him  to  sing  of  the  beginning  of 
created  things.  So  he  sang  in  his  dream  a  song  in  praise 
of  the  Lord,  thus:  JSTow  shall  we  laud  the  author  of 
heaven,  the  might  of  the  creator  and  his  counsel,  the 
deeds  of  the  father  of  glory,  how  he,  the  eternal  God, 
was  the  author  of  all  wonders,  who  first  made  for  the 
children  of  men  her.ven  for  a  roof,  he  the  holy  creator, 
and  afterwards  established  the  middle  region,  the  earth, 
for  men,  the  almighty  Lord.  Upon  awaking,  Caedmon 
repeated  this  and  added  much  thereto.     The  news  of  the 


CAEDMON.  45 

wonder  soon  spread  to  the  cloister,  where  he  was  called 
upon  to  give  specimens  of  his  newlj  acquired  gift.  Ths 
abbess  Hild  received  him  into  the  cloister  and  made  her 
learned  men  recite  the  bible  story  to  him.  Whatever 
they  told  him,  he  elaborated  in  his  mind  and  turned  it 
into  glorious  songs,  so  that  his  teachers  soon  became  his 
Hsteners  And  thus,  says  Bede,  he  sang  of  the  creation 
of  the  world  and  the  origin  of  the  human  race,  and  the 
whole  story  of  Genesis;  of  the  Exodus  of  the  children 
of  Israel  from  Egypt  and  their  entry  into  the  promised 
land;  of  many  other  sacred  stories;  of  the  incarnation 
of  our  Lord,  his  sufferings,  resurrection,  and  ascension  ; 
of  the  coming  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  preaching  of 
the  apostles;  of  the  terrors  of  the  last  judgment  and  the 
pangs  of  hell  and  the  bliss  of  heaven.  Also  many  other 
songs  of  God's  grace  and  God's  judgments,  and  in  them 
all  he  strove  to  lead  men  from  sin  and  incite  them  to 
virtue. 

Professor  ten  Brink,  one  of  the  soundest  judges  of 
our  early  literature,  is  disposed  to  concede  some  basis  of 
fact  to  this  story,  but  observes  shrewdly  that  it  implies 
an  extraordinarily  wide  range  of  poetic  powers  and  ac- 
tivity. If  we  take  Bede's  words  literally,  this  Caedmon 
must  have  been  not  only  an  epic  but  a  lyric  and  a  di- 
dactic poet  of  the  highest  order,  and  his  productions 
must  have  comprised  every  subject  and  style  of  compo- 
sition in  the  whole  range  of  our  religious  poetry.  Per- 
haps we  are  to  regard  Bede's  Caedmon  (like  Widsith,  § 
15)  as  a  typical  rather  than  a  real  character.  He  seems 
to  stand  for  the  entire  class  of  humble  but  zealous  con- 
verts. Besides,  we  must  remember  that  the  story  of 
Caedmon  is  not  the  only  wonder  that  Bede  tells  in  this 
connection,  see  §  19. 

Bede  says  that^  he  gives  only  the  '  substance'  of  Caed- 
mon's  dream-song,  in  Latin  prose,  beginning  thus: 
Nunc  laudare  debemus  auctorem  regni  coelestis,  &c.     King 


46  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

Alfred,  in  his  "West-Saxon  translation  of  Bede's  Historia, 
see  §  26,  when  he  comes  to  this  point,  uses  the  following 
language :  Then  he  (Caedraon)  began  straightway  to 
sing  these  words  and  verses,  which  he  had  never  heard, 
the  '  order '  of  which  is : 

-  Kii  we  sceolon  herian     heofonrices  weard, 
Metodes  mihte     ond  his  modgethonc, 
&c.,  &G. 

In  all,  nine  alliterative  full  lines,  corresponding  exactly 
to  Bede's  Latin  prose. 

At  the  end   of  one  of  the  Latin  MSS.  of  Bede  are 
found  nine  lines  in  the  vernacular,  beginning  thus : 

Nu  scylun  liergan     hefaenricaes  uard, 
Metudaes  maecti     end  his  modgedanc, 
&c.,  &c. 

The  diiFerence  between  the  two  sets  of  verse  is  merely 
one  of  dialect.  King  Alfred's  passage  is  in  Wessex,  the 
other  in  Northumbrian,  but  otherwise  the  two  passages 
agree  absolutely. 

But  the  beginning  of  the  Junian  Genesis  (which  is 
also  iu  Wessex  dialect)  is  different,  and  is  worded  thus : 

Us  is  riht  micel     thaet  wp  rodera  weard, 
Wereda  wuldorcining     wordum  herigen 
Modum  lufien  :     he  is  maegna  sped, 
&c.,  &c. 

Which  may  be  rendered :  It  is  our  bounden  duty  that 
we  the  lord  of  glory,  the  wonder-king  of  peoples,  with 
our  words  should  praise,  with  our  hearts  should  love ; 
he  is  the  promoter  of  strength,  &c. 

The  question  naturally  suggests  itself:  In  what  rela- 
tion do  the  Latin  prose  lines  in  the  text  of  Bede,  the 
Northumbrian  verses  appended  to  Bede,  and  King  Al- 
fred's verses  stand  to  one  another,  and  how  are  they  all 
three  related  to  the  poem  of  Genesis  ? 

The  problem  is  complicated,  and  some  of  the  points 


GENESIS.  47 

are  still  in  dispute.  But  opinion  seems  to  be  gradually 
settling  down  to  tliese  conclusions:  1.  That  the  Latin 
MS.  of  Bede  is  of  the  early  part  of  the  8th  century,  say 
737.  Consequently  it  was  penned  almost  immediately 
after  Bedc's  death.  2.  That  the  metrical  fragment  in 
Northumbrian  appended  to  this  MS.  is  of  the  same  date 
as  the  body  of  the  MS.  3.  That  Bede's  Latin  '■ninie 
laudare  debemus,'  &c.,  is  translated  from  the  Northum- 
brian. 4.  That  King  Alfred's  verses  are  merely  a  later 
Wessex  form  of  the  same  Northumbrian.  We  have  in 
this  Northumbrian  fragment,  then,  the  remains  of  a  very 
old  poem  of  the  7th  century,  which  nothing  prevents  us 
from  ascribino;  to  the  Caedmon  of  whom  Bede  writes. 
The  further  point,  viz.,  the  relation  between  the  North- 
umbrian fragment  and  the  Junian  Genesis  is  not  yet 
fully  cleared  up.  Probably  w^e  shall  be  safe  in  taking  a 
middle  position.  We  may  assert,  on  the  one  hand,  that 
the  Junian  Genesis  is  not  a  direct  Wessex  version  of  the 
Northumbriam  poem  of  which  the  Bede  MS.  has  pre- 
served a  fragment.  On  the  other  hand,  we  may  admit 
that  the  substance  of  the  early  Northumbrian  poem  has 
been  embodied  in  the  Junian  Genesis.  According  to 
Professor  ten  Brink,  the  style  of  Genesis  gives  unmis- 
takable evidence  of  high  antiquity.  It  suggests  an  art 
of  versification  in  its  infancy,  not  on  the  decline. 

21,  Genesis,  as  we  have  it  in  the  Junian  MS.,  is  a 
poem  of  2935  full  verses.  Originally  it  must  have  been 
much  longer,  for  there  are  six  large  gaps  in  the  MS.,  and 
the  narrative  ends  abruptly  at  the  sacrifice  of  L=;aac. 
The  MS.  is  of  the  10th  centur}^,  but  the  language  is  that 
of  the  9th,  if  not  earlier. 

We  have  to  distinguish  in  the  poem  two  portions  of 
unequal  length  and  dissimilar  character.  Namely, 
verses  245  to  851  are  an  interpolation.  See  §  5.  Pro- 
fessor Sievers,  who  established  this  fact  in  the  year  1875, 


48  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

regards  the  interpolated  passage  as  an  English  transla- 
tion from  an  Old-Suxon  poem  on  the  same  subject,  now 
lost,  and  composed  in  the  latter  half  of  the  9th  century, 
probably  by  the  author  of  the  famous  Old-Saxon  He- 
liand.  Professor  ten  Brink  has  given  to  the  interpolated 
passage  the  title  of  Younger  Genesis,  and  to  the  older 
and  main  portion  the  title  of  Elder  Genesis. 

The  poem  opens  with  an  invocation  to  God,  and  pro- 
ceeds to  sing  of  the  bliss  of  the  angels  in  heaven  and  tlie 
rebellion  and  fall  of  the  angels.  These  notions  concern- 
ing the  ten  orders  of  angels  and  the  rebellion  of  Lucifer 
are  wholly  foreign  to  the  bible-text,  and  are  derived  from 
the  writings  of  Gregory  the  Great  and  the  compendium 
made  by  Isidor  from  the  writings  of  Gregory  and  St. 
Augustine.  Tliej  recur  with  endless  variation  all 
through  medieval  literature,  see  §  24.  The  poem  goes 
on  to  state  that  after  the  bad  angels  have  been  thrust 
out  of  heaven  and  peace  restored,  the  Lord  is  moved 
with  sorrow  at  the  sight  of  so  many  vacant  seats.  By 
way  of  compensation  he  proceeds  to  create  earth  and 
man.  The  description  of  the  creation  conforms  strictly 
to  the  bible,  except  that  the  two  accounts  of  man's  crea- 
tion (Gen.  i.  26 ;  ii.  7)  are  thrown  into  one.  Some  of 
the  passages  are  extremely  forcible.  In  describing  the 
creation  of  light,  the  poet  bursts  forth  : 

The  earth  was  yet, 
The  grass  all  imgreen;  the  sea  covered 
By  swarthy  night  far  and  wide, 
The  wan  waves.     Then  came  beaming  in  glory 
The  spirit  of  heaven's  warder  borne  o'er  the  waves 
With  mighty  blessing.     The  lord  of  the  angels, 
The  giver  of  life,  bade  the  light  come  forth 
Over  the  wide  ground;   quickly  was  obeyed 
The  high  king's  behest.     Holy  light 
Was  oyer  the  wastes,  as  the  worker  commanded. 

The  iirsi:  part  of  the  Elder  Genesis  stops  at  v.  245,  with 
the  naming  of  the  four  rivers  of  Paradise,  Gen.  ii.  14. 


YOUNGER   GENESIS.  49 

Passing  over  the  Younger- Genesis  interpolation  for  the 
present,  we  iind  the  ekler  poem  resuming  the  story  at 
the  point  where  the  Lord  calls  to  Adam  in  Paradise  just 
after  Adam  and  Eve  have  eaten  the  forbidden  fruit, 
Gen.  ill.  9,  The  poet  adheres  closely  to  the  text.  Occa- 
sionally he  abridges  a  pedigree;  occasionally,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  amplifies  a  passage  in  accordance  with 
Old-German  notions.  Thus  his  description  of  the  flood, 
although  not  much  longer  than  that  in  the  original, 
creates  the  impression  that  it  must  have  been  adapted 
to  the  experience  of  a  sea-faring  people.  The  flood  be- 
comes more  of  a  tempest. 

The  Younger- Genesis  interpolation  is  interesting  in 
more  than  one  respect.  It  repeats,  but  in  a  much  fuller 
form,  the  fall  of  the  angels,  and  introduces  the  tempta- 
tion and  fall  of  man.  It  describes  the  fallen  angels  as 
they  lie  bound  in  the  fire  of  the  bottomless  pit.  Their 
leader,  Satan,  delivers  a  speech  in  which  he  declares  his 
unconqnered  hate  and  announces  his  intention  to  ruin 
the  newly  created  race  of  man.  The  resemblance  be- 
tween this  Old-English  Satan  and  Milton's  archfiend  is 
striking.  But  the  most  significant  trait  in  the  interpo- 
lated passage  is  the  peculiar  character  it  gives  to  the 
temptation.  In  the  bible  and  in  all  the  ecclesiastical 
literature  of  the  middle  ages  Adam  and  Eve  are  repre- 
sented as  overcome  by  the  evil  spirit's  appeal  to  their 
idle  cariosity  or  some  such  improper  feeling. 

Here,  the  tempter  is  a  veritable  father  of  lies.  He  an- 
nounces himself  as  a  messenger  sent  from  God  to  com- 
mand them  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  and  threatens 
them  with  divine  wrath  if  they  refuse.  This  of  course 
places  the  conduct  of  our  first  parents  in  a  better  light; 
it  diminishes  their  guilt,  if  it  does  not  remove  it  alto- 
gether. It  is  contrary  to  the  rigorous  doctrine  of  the 
medieval  church,  which  sought  to  enhance  its  own 
efficacy  by  deepening  man's  sinfulness.     The  only  work 


50  ANGLO-SAXON  LITERATURE. 

in  whicli  we  find  a  like  disposition  to  touch  lis^htly  upon 
sin  and  the  fall  is  in  the  Old-Saxon  poem  of  the  Heliand, 
above  mentioned.  We  may  account  for  such  a  disposi- 
tion by  assuming  that  the  Old-Saxons,  who  had  just  been 
forcibly  converted  to  Christianity  by  Charlemagne,  were 
unwilling  to  acceftt  the  doctrine  of  total  depravity  be- 
cause it  seemed  to  them  an  unmanly  belief. 

22.  The  next  poem  in  the  Junian  Ms.  is  called 
Exodus.  This  title  is  too  extensive  for  the  matter, 
which  does  not  include  all  the  events  in  the  biblical 
Exodus,  but  merely  the  march  of  the  children  of  Israel 
through  the  Red  Sea  and  the  destruction  of  the  Egyptian 
army.  It  is  only  589  verses  long;  at  verse  445  there  is 
a  gap  of  two  pages  in  the  ms.  According  to  Professor 
ten  Brink,  the  author  must  have  been  an  epic  singer 
turned  bible-poet  and  retaining  his  old  love  for  heroes 
and  weapons.  J^owhere  in  the  Christian  poetry  is  the  love 
of  fighting  so  marked.  This  is  all  the  more  striking  as 
the  narrative  does  not  have  any  battle  to  describe,  but 
can  merely  tell  of  preparations  for  battle  and  the  great 
danger  threatening  the  Hebrews.  The  descriptions  are 
more  detailed  than  in  Genesis,  more  imaginative,  and 
more  poetical. 

The  third  poem,  Daniel,  contains  765  verses  ;  there  is 
one  considerable  gap  in  the  ms.  Like  Exodus,  it  does 
not  give  all  the  contents  of  the  biblical  book  ;  it  ends 
abruptly  at  Dan  v.  22,  in  the  midst  of  the  prophet's 
interpretation  of  Belshazzar's  dream.  It  selects  only 
important  incidents,  especially  such  as  inculcate  submis- 
sion to  God  and  trust  in  him,  and  distrust  of  one's  own 
powers.  The  style  is  simpler  and  less  graphic  than  that 
of  Exodus. 

The  last  poem  of  this  ms.,  usually  called  Christ  and 
Satan,  is  not  one  homogeneous  piece,  but  is  a  mere  col- 
lection, carelessly  put  together,  of  fragments  of  three 


MINOR   POEMS.  51 

separate  poems,  treating  respectively  of  the  pangs  of  the 
Fallen  Angels,  Christ's  Descent  into  Hell  and  Ascension, 
and  Christ's  Temptation.  All  three  fragments  are  evi- 
dently much  later  in  date  than  Genesis,  Exodus,  and 
Daniel,  and  also  much  inferior. 

Not  much  if  any  later  than  Exodus  and  Daniel  are 
various  short  pieces,  e.g.  a  metrical  paraphrase  of  the 
50th  psalm  (in  the  Kentish  dialect),  a  poem  on  the  Day 
of  Judgment,  descriptions  of  Hell  and  Heaven,  and  the 
speeches  of  the  Soul  to  the  Body  after  Death. 

These  last  mentioned  pieces,  one  for  the  condemned 
soul,  one  for  the  blessed  soul,  exemplify  the  curious 
medieval  belief  that  the  soul  after  death,  see  §  26,  visits 
the  body  every  week,  until  the  two  shall  be  reunited  at 
the  judgment-day  and  consigned  together  to  final  bliss 
or  final  woe.  There  is  no  lack  of  similar  pieces,  prose 
and  verse,  in  the  medieval  literature  of  every  European 
nation. 

Equally  curious  are  the  traces  of  so-called  'animal 
svmbolism.'  In  the  earlier  centuries  of  the  Christian 
era  it  became  a  custom  among  Christians  to  regard  cer- 
tain animals  as  symbolizing  certain  mysteries  of  the  faith. 
Compendiums  were  made  for  ready  reference ;  such  a 
compendium  was  called  a  physiologus.  We  possess  re- 
mains of  an  Anglo-Saxon  yhysiologas  in  the  short  poems 
which  treat  of  the  panther  and  the  whale,  and  in  the 
fragment  of  a  poem  on  a  curious  bird  entitled  by  Grein 
*  The  Partridge.'  The  Panther,  who  retires  to  a  se- 
cluded spot  in  the  mountain-valley,  sleeps  three  days,  and 
on  awaking  utters  sweet  cries  and  exhales  a  delicious 
odor,  symbolizes  Christ,  the  risen  Lord.  The  Whale, 
who  beguiles  unwary  mariners  into  mistaking  him  for 
an  island  and  climbing  on  his  back,  only  to  open  his 
jaws  and  devour  them,  symbolizes  Hell.  We  find  rem- 
iniscences of  superstitious  belief  in  such  treacherous 
floating  islands  even  in  modern  literature.  , 


52  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

CTNEWULF — RIDDLES,  CHRIST,  ELENE,  &C. 

33.  The  person  and  writings  of  Caeclmon,  see  §  20, 
are  involved  in  uncertainty.  But  our  knowledge  of  an- 
other of  the  great  poets  of  early  England  is  somewhat 
more  definite.  Cynewulf  was  born  about  the  middle  of 
the  8th  century.  He  is  usually  held  to  be  a  native  of 
Northumbria.  He  belonged  in  early  life  to  the  class  of 
singers  who  wandered  from  court  to  court.  His  educa- 
tion had  been  got  at  a  convent-school ;  at  all  events  he 
had  some  knowledge  of  Latin. 

Only  one  of  his  secular  works  has  been  preserved,  viz., 
a  collection  of  riddles  in  alliterate  verse.  The  suo-^'es- 
tions  for  these  riddles  he  borrowed  partly  from  Aldhelm, 
see  §  19,  partly  from  oral  traditions  of  the  folk.  The 
Angles  and  Saxons,  like  the  other  Germans,  had  an  in- 
born liking  for  oracular  utterances  and  plays  on  w^ords. 
One  of  the  most  celebrated  encounters  of  wit  is  that 
narrated  in  the  Vafthrudnismal  of  the  elder  Edda.  Here 
the  god  Othin,  assuming  the  form  of  a  man  and  the 
name  Gangradr,  visits  the  giant  Vafthrudnir  in  his  hall. 
The  two  propound  to  each  other  the  most  difficult  rid- 
dles, until  at  last  Gangradr  asks  the  giant  what  Othin 
had  whispered  in  the  ear  of  Balder  when  the  latter  was  as- 
cending the  funeral  pile.  At  this  the  giant  perceives 
that  his  antagonist  is  none  other  than  the  father  of  the 
gods  and  acknowledges  himself  overcome.  His  head  is 
the  forfeit.  In  this  respect  the  Eddaic  story  resembles 
the  Greek  myth  of  Oedipus  and  the  Sphinx. 

Cynewulf 's  riddles  are  marked  by  imagination,  a  close 
observation  of  nature  and  the  realities  of  life,  and  also  a 


RIDDLES POEM    OF    CHRIST.  53 

relish  for  social  enjoyment.    Tlie  following  may  serve  as 
a  specimen : 

Me  a  while  ago  for  dead  gave  up 

My  father  and  mother;   1  had  no  body  as  yet, 

Nor  life  within.     Then  a  woman  began, 

Well  disposed,  to  cover  me  with  garments, 

Kept  and  cherished  me,  enfolded  me 

As  faithfully  as  she  did  her  own  bairns, 

Until,  under  her  lap,  as  my  nature  was. 

Under  her  foster  lap  I  waxed  in  spirit. 

Me  the  jprotectress  fed  then 

Until  I  grew  and  was  able 

To  fly  afar.     She  had  the  less 

Of  sons  and  daughters  of  her  own  for  thus  doing. 

[Answer:  A  Cuckoo. 

Cynewulf,  it  is  believed,  passed  the  latter  part  of  his 
life  in  a  convent.  His  subsequent  writings  are  all  of  a 
religious  character.  The  poem  called  Chrid,  containing 
1690  verses,  is  composed  in  three  parts :  tirst,  the  Birth 
of  Christ;  second,  the  Ascension;  thii^d,  the  Coming  at 
the  Last  Day.  (Of  part  first  the  beginning  is  lost.) 
According  to  Professor  ten  Brink  the  substance  of  the 
poem  is  taken  from  Latin  homilies,  especially  from  those 
of  Gregoi'y  the  Great.  The  effect  of  the  whole  is  that 
of  a  cycle  of  hymns,  but  liberally  intermixed  with  epic 
and  dramatic  elements.  In  form  it  passes  back  and 
forth  from  narration  to  dialogue,  from  dialogue  to 
ejaculations  of  praise.  To  quote  Professor  ten  Brink's 
words,  it  is  a  majestic  monument  of  deep  religions  feel- 
ing and  keen,  lofty  intellect.  The  feeling  of  love  and 
adoration  for  Christ  and  the  Virgin  reaches  the  highest 
pitch  of  expression,  but  without  breaking  into  that 
sentimental  strain  which  the  later  Christian  poets  of  the 
12th  and  IStli  centuries  caught  from  the  Ilinneswger. 
Nowhere  is  the  love  of  Christ  described  more  earnestly, 
more  touchingly,  nowhere  are  the  terrors  of  the  last 
judgment  depicted  more  forcibly.     Among  all  our  early 


54  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

English  poems  of  religion,  Cj'newulf  s  Christ  is  the  one 
ill  which  the  spirit  of  the  Latin  church  is  exliibited  at 
its  best.  On  the  other  hand  the  Old-German  conception 
of  the  comitatus,  retinueship,  or  vassalage,  is  conspicu- 
ous, and  we  even  seem  to  detect  here  and  there  a  faint 
echo  of  those  old  pagan  hymns  that  once  must  have 
celebrated  the  glories  of  Othin's  Walhalla. 

34.  The  best  known  and  most  popular  of  Cynewulf 's 
works  is  the  Elene,  a  legendary  story  of  the  expedition 
sent  by  the  emperor  Constantine  to  recover  from  the 
Holy  Land  the  cross  upon  wdiich  Christ  was  put  to 
death.  The  poem  contains  1321  verses;  the  last  85  are 
personal.  In  them  the  poet  speaks  of  himself  as  having 
been  troubled  in  spirit  at  the  recollection  of  a  misspent 
life,  until  he  is  comforted  by  the  contemplation  of  the 
Cross  and  its  glory.  He  then  introduces  a  passage  in 
which,  line  by  line,  the  runic  names  of  the  single  letters 
composing  his  name  are  made  to  bear  the  alliteration 
and  tlius  reveal  the  author.  The  passage  has  the  effect 
of  an  acrostich. 

The  story  of  the  Finding  of  the  Cross  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  and  characteristic  legends  of  the  early 
church,  and  has  been  preserved  in  a  great  variety  of  ver- 
sions in  many  languages.  In  Cynewulf's  version  the 
main  points  are  these.  In  the  year  233  Constantine, 
still  a  heathen,  is  attacked  by  his  enemies,  chiefly  the 
Huns.  (The  date  233  is,  of  course,  impossible.  By 
slightly  changing  the  order  of  words  in  Anglo-Saxon, 
we  can  get  332,  which  would  come  much  nearer  to  the 
probable  date  of  the  emperor's  conversion.  But  the 
Latin  original  followed  by  Cynewulf  has  the  same  fig- 
ures, 233.)  In  his  sleep,  on  the  eve  of  the  battle  which 
is  to  decide  the  fate  of  his  empire,  an  angel  of  the  Lord 
appears  and  bids  him  shake  off  fear  and  look  aloft  for  a 
sign  of  victory.     He  looks  and  beholds  in  the  sky  a  glit- 


ELENE.  55 

tering  cross  bearing  the  inscription :  With  this  sign 
shalt  thou  conquer  thy  enemies.  (A  translation  of  the 
familiar  ill  hoc  signo  vinces.)  Awaking,  tlie  emperor  or- 
ders a  cross  to  be  made  immediately  and  carried  before 
him.  Wherever  tliis  cross  is  borne  in  tlie  fight,  tlie 
enemy  is  dismayed  and  routed.  Having  gained  a  com- 
plete victory,  Constantino  summons  his  wise  men  and 
bids  them  interpret  this  unknown  symbol.  They  are  at 
a  loss  for  an  answer.  But  at  last  some  Christain  sokliers 
venture  to  tell  the  story  of  Christ's  life  and  death.  The 
emperor  accepts  joyfully  the  new  doctrine  and  is  bap- 
tized. Being  furtlier  instructed  in  bible-histor}^,  he 
learns  that  Christ  was  put  to  death  in  Judea.  There- 
upon he  fits  out  an  expedition,  at  the  head  of  which  he 
puts  his  mother  Helena,  to  find  if  possible  where  the 
Cross  had  been  hid.  As  soon  as  the  empress  reaches 
Jerusalem,  she  convenes  the  wise  men  learned  in  the 
law  of  Moses.  They  evade  in  various  ways  her  persist- 
ent questionings.  After  meeting  them  thus  four  times 
without  success,  she  throws  one  of  their  number,  Judas, 
into  prison  and  keeps  him  tliere  six  days  without  food. 
On  the  seventh  day  his  resolution  gives  way  and  he 
promises  to  aid  in  the  search. 

He  guides  the  Christians  to  Calvary,  but  is  unable  to 
find  the  spot  where  the  Cross  has  been  hid.  In  his 
emergency  he  prays  to  God.  This  prayer,  says  Pro- 
fessor ten  Brink,  is  a  curious  blending  of  Old-Hebrew 
fervor  and  Old-German  pathos,  tinged  with  Talmudic 
ideas  of  a  hierarchy  of  angels  surrounding  the  glory  of 
the  Father,  §  21.  He  begs  that  the  spot  may  be  indi- 
cated by  a  cloud  of  smoke.  His  prayer  is  granted.  He 
returns  thanks,  and  they  dig  down  twenty  feet,  when 
they  discover  three  crosses.  That  is,  they  have  found 
also  the  two  on  which  the  thieves  were  put  to  death. 
Returning  to  the  city,  they  lay  the  three  before  the  em- 
press, who  rejoices  with  them  but  wishes  to  know  which 


56  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

is  the  Savior's,  Judas  is  completely  at  fault.  Tliey  sing 
hymns  to  God  until  the  ninth  hour,  when  a  company  of 
mourners  pass  by,  carrying  to  the  grave  the  body  of  a 
young  man.  Judas  orders  them  to  stop  and  set  the  bier 
down.  He  holds,  one  after  the  other,  two  of  the  crosses 
over  the  corpse ;  but  it  remains  motionless  as  before. 
He  then  holds  the  third  cross;  instantly  the  dead  man 
arises,  body  and  soul  re-united. 

Messengers  are  sent  to  Constantine  to  inform  him  of  the 
discovery.  He  returns  word  to  erect  a  church  on  the 
spot  where  the  cross  was  found.  The  cross  is  set  in 
gold  and  precious  stones  and  deposited  in  the  church,  in 
a  silver  casket.  Judas  is  baptized.  By  order  of  the  em- 
press. Bishop  (Pope)  Eusebius  of  Rome  visits  Jerusalem 
and  consecrates  Judas  bishop  of  the  new  diocese. 
Henceforth  Judas  is  known  as  Cyriacus. 

But  Helena  is  not  yet  satisfied.  She  wishes  to  have 
the  nails  with  which  the  feet  and  hands  of  the  Savior 
were  pierced.  Once  more  Cyriacus  proceeds  to  Calvary 
and  prays.  A  bright  flame  shoots  out  of  the  ground. 
The  nails  are  dug  up  and  brought  to  the  empress.  Cy- 
riacus advises  her  to  have  them  made  into  a  bit  for  the 
emperor's  bridle  ;  so  long  as  the  emperor  shall  guide  his 
horse  with  this  bit,  so  long  shall  he  be  victorious.  The 
empress  remains  a  while  longer  in  Jerusalem,  helping  to 
build  up  the  new  Christian  community.  Cyriacus  per- 
forms many  miracles  of  healing.  At  her  departure  the 
empress  bestows  rich  gifts  on  him  and  enjoins  the  church 
to  celebrate  the  anniversary  of  the  day  on  which  the 
cross  was  found.  It  was  the  last  day  but  six  of  spring. 
As  summer  began  on  the  9th  of  May,  according  to  the 
Anglo-Saxon  calendar,  this  day  would  be  the  3d  of  May. 

25,  Another  of  Cynevvulf's  poems,  Juliana^  narrates 
the  martyrdom  of  a  noble  Christian  woman  of  that 
name,  supposed  to  have  lived  in  the  reign  of  the  Roman 


PHOENIX.  57 

emperor  Maximinian.  Juliana  refuses  to  wed  a  heathen 
husband,  and  for  her  steadfast  resistance  is  frightfully 
tortured  and  put  to  death.  Cynewult's  version  is 
adapted  from  the  Latin. 

The  metrical  Life  of  St.  Gathlac  is  only  in  part  the 
work  of  Cynewulf.  It  tells  of  the  trials  and  tempta- 
tions of  Gutlilac,  a  hermit  of  Eng-land,  who  died  714. 
Cynewulf  8  share,  the  latter  part,  follows  closely  a  Latin 
life  of  the  saint  by  the  monk  Felix  of  Croyland. 

These  four  works,  viz.,  the  Biddies,  Christ,  Elene,  and 
Juliana,  with  the  portion  of  Guthlac,  are  all  that  can  be 
safely  claimed  for  Cynewulf.  Several  other  works  were 
formerly  ascribed  io  him,  which  are  now  disputed,  viz : 
Andreas,  The  Phoenix,  The  Vision  of  the  Hood,  and  vari- 
ous shorter  pieces.  Ihe  Vision  of  the  Hood  is  rather  a  fee- 
ble copy  of  the  conclusion  of  Cynewulf's  Christ  (see  be- 
ginning of  §  24)  than  a  work  by  the  same  author.  It  is 
monotonous  and  verbose.  Andreas  is  the  legendary  (and 
extremely  fabulous)  story  of  the  adventures  and  suffer- 
ing of  St.  Andrew,  who  is  sent  by  God  to  rescue  St. 
Matthew  from  captivity  in  the  land  of  the  Mermedons, 
The  poet,  whoever  he  may  have  been,  followed  a  Greek, 
not  a  Latin,  version,  as  is  shown  by  certain  peculiar  lo- 
cutions. The  Phoenix,  a  poem  of  677  verses,  is  a  metri- 
cal rendering  of  a  Latin  poem  ascribed  to  Lactantius,  a 
church-father  of  the  4tli  century.  Herodotus,  who  got 
the  fable  from  the  Egyptians,  was  the  first  to  tell  of  this 
wonderful  bird.  The  next  writer  of  importance  was 
Ovid.  During  the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era  two 
slightly  different  versions  sprang  up.  According  to  one, 
when  the  phoenix  dies,  a  new  bird  arises  from  the  dead 
body  and  buries  it.  According  to  the  other,  the  phoenix 
burns  liimself,  and  a  new  bird  arises  from  the  ashes. 
The  latter  version  is  more  usual,  and  is  the  one  followed 
by  Lactantius  in  his  De  Phoenice  and  by  our  early  Eng- 
lish poet.  -But   the   English   poem,  from  v.  380  on,  de- 


58  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

velops  an  idea  which  is  not  in  the  Latin  original  at  all, 
i.e.,  it  applies  the  phoenix-myth  to  the  Christian  doc- 
trine of  the  resurrection.  Tlie  new-born  phoenix  is 
made  to  symbolize  the  risen  Lord  and  the  elect.  This 
added  part  is  of  course  the  most  interesting. 

Among  the  minor  poems  of  this  period,  although  not 
to  be  connected  with  Cynewulf,  are  Tke  Liament  of  Deor, 
remarkable  for  its  being  the  only  poem  composed  in 
strophes  (or  stanzas),  The  Wanderer,  The  Seafarer,  The 
Ruin,  The  llessage  of  the  Husband  to  his  Wife,  and  a  col- 
lection of  pithy  sayings,  usually  called  'gnomic'  verses. 
All  except  the  gnomic  verses  are  marked  by  a  strong 
undercurrent  of  sadness.  It  is  impossible  to  discover 
their  authors,  or  even  to  determine  accurately  the  times 
when  they  were  composed.  But  in  all  probability  they 
are  anterior  to  the  reign  of  King  Alfred. 


CHAPTER  VIIL 

KING    ALFRED — OROSIUS,    BOETHIUS,    PASTORAL     CARE — 

CHRONICLE. 

26.  Mention  has  been  made  in  §  11  of  the  troubles 
caused  in  the  early  part  of  Alfred's  reign  by  the  Danish 
invasions.  Li  878  a  treaty  was  concluded  at  Wedmore, 
which  practically  divided  England  into  a  northeastern 
portion  under  Danish  overrule,  and  a  southwestern, 
Wessex,  under  Alfred. 

Having  conquered  peace,  Alfred  bent  his  energies  to 
the  task  of  repairing  the  terrible  damages  that  had  been 
wrought.  He  paid  as  much  attention  to  restoring  pnety 
and  learning  as  to  political  and  military  reform.  Not 
content  with  rebuilding  and  endowing  schools  and 
churches,  he  set  in  his  own  person  an  extraordinary  ex- 


ORosius.  69 

ample  of  unceasing  literary  activity.  Late  in  life  he  be- 
gan the  study  of  Latin  and  translated  numerous  works 
into  the  vernacular.  Nearly  all  his  writings  have  been 
preserved.  They  fully  establish  his  claim  to  be  regarded 
as  the  father  of  our  English  prose. 

The  first  work  that  he  translated  was  a  Latin  history 
of  the  world,  composed  about  418  by  a  Spanish  monk 
named  Orosius.  The  Latin  original  is  a  mere  compila- 
tion, immethodical  and  uncritical.  But  it  has  one  merit; 
it  is  the  first  attempt  to  write  history  from  an  interna- 
tional point  of  view.  Its  spirit  is  orthodox-christian, 
but  its  tone,  we  might  say,  is  cosmopolitan.  It  is  cer- 
taiidy  not  exclusively  Greek  or  exclusively  Latin.  The 
seven  books  of  Orosius  were  a  favorite  work  throughout 
the  early  middle  ages.  We  have  seen,  §  19,  that  Bede 
consulted  them.  In  translating  the  first  chapter  of  the 
first  book,  Alfred  inserted  some  materials  of  his  own, 
viz.,  a  description  prepared  by  himself  of  all  the  coun- 
tries that  were  then  occupied  by  German-speaking  tribes, 
and  tAvo  reports  of  exploring  voyages,  written  dow-n  by 
him  from  the  dictation  of  the  men  who  had  made  the 
voyages.  Ohthere,  starting  from  his  home  on  the  western 
coast  of  Norway,  had  doubled  the  North  Ca[)e  and  ex- 
plored the  AYhite  Sea  as  far  as  the  mouth  of  the  river 
Dwina.  He  was  undoubtedly  the  first  man  of  Germanic 
descent  to  discover  those  regions.  The  other  traveler, 
Wulfstan,  starting  from  what  is  now  the  town  of  Sles- 
wig,  explored  the  coast  of  the  Baltic  as  far  as  Danzig 
and  Konigsberg.  These  two  reports  and  Alfred's  de- 
scription are  the  most  interesting  and  valuable  contribu- 
tions that  we  possess  to  the  ethnography  of  the  times. 

Alfred's  next  translation  was  from  Bede's  Historia, 
see  §  19.  This  was  followed  by  a  free  rendering  of  the 
celebrated  work  by  Boethius,  De  Consolatione  Philoso- 
phiae.  Boethius,  often  called  the  '  Last  of  the  Romans,^ 
was  a  prominent  statesman  and  philosopher  of  the  6th 


60  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

century.  Being  charged,  unjustly  it  is  now  believed, 
with  complicity  in  a  conspiracy  against  the  Gothic  king, 
Theoderic,  hewasthrowninto  prison  andfinally  executed, 
525.  It  was  during  his  imprisonment  that  he  composed 
his  Consolatio.  The  work  is  in  the  main  an  embodiment 
of  Neo-Platonic  doctrines,  but  with  a  considerable  ad- 
mixture of  Stoicism.  Its  Christianity  is  rather  superfi- 
cial, for  Boethius  was  only  a  Christian  in  name.  But  by 
reason  of  its  clear  and  elegant  style  and  the  good  sense 
of  its  teachings,  it  became  almost  immediately  a  popular 
work  among  churchmen  and  exerted  a  wonderful  influ- 
ence upon  all  medieval  writers,  lay  no  less  than  clerical. 
Chaucer,  for  instance,  never  wearies  of  citing  Boethius, 
and  for  several  centuries  after  Chaucer  we  may  observe 
the  Consolatio  still  maintaining  its  hold  upon  men  of 
learning.  Alfred's  translation,  or  rather  paraphrase,  can 
make  no  pretense  to  the  elegance  of  the  original. 

The  work  upon  which  Alfred  bestowed  most  pains  is 
the  translation  of  Pope  Gregory's  Pastoral  Care,  a 
treatise  by  the  great  pope  upon  the  true  nature  of  the 
priestly  vocation  and  the  proper  way  of  fullilling  its 
duties.  Gregory's  teachings  were  peculiarly  applicable 
to  the  English  clergy  in  Alfred's  reign,  who  were  very 
imperfectly  trained.  Hence  the  King  ordered  a  copy  of 
his  translation  to  be  kept  in  every  cathedral  church  of 
his  realm.  Two  of  these  very  manuscripts  still  remain  ; 
one  is  much  injured,  the  other  is  entire  except  a  single 
leaf  at  the  end.  They  exhibit  the  actual  language  of  the 
south  of  England  in  the  9th  century,  as  it  was  written 
down  under  the  eyes  of  the  King,  and  are  consequently 
of  the  highest  philological  value.  Alfred's  Preface,  in 
the  form  of  a  letter  to  Bishop  "Werferth,  gives  a  forcible 
account  of  the  disorganization  and  ignorance  of  the 
country  during  the  early  part  of  his  reign,  and  the  ener- 
getic measures  he  employed  to  disseminate  knowledge. 

Another  work  of  Gregory's,  the  so-called  Dialogues, 


Gregory's  dialogues.  61 

was  not  translated  by  Alfred  himself,  but  by  his  friend 
Werferth,  bishop  of  Worcester.  These  Dialogues  era- 
body  the  views  of  the  pope  upon  the  lives  and  miracles 
of  the  early  Italian  saints.  They  owe  their  title  to  the 
circumstance  that  they  are  put  into  the  shape  of  a  series 
of  imaginary  conversations  between  Gregory  and  his 
archdeacon  Peter.  The  fourth  (last)  book  exerted  a  re- 
markable influence  upon  medieval  literature.  It  treats 
of  the  life  of  the  soul  after  death,  see  §  22,  and  recounts 
many  of  the  'visions'  of  spiritual  and  supernatural 
things  vouchsafed  to  holy  men  in  the  early  church. 
Closely  connected  with  the  visions  was  the  doctrine  of 
'purgatory,'  which  was  in  process  of  establishment  in 
Gregory's  day.  From  Gregory's  Latin  Dialogues  these 
visions  and  purgatorial  wonders  passed  into  early  Irish 
literature,  where  they  were  developed  freely  and  trans- 
fused with  Keltic  superstition,  forming  a  department  by 
themselves.  The  doctrine  of  purgatory  became  perma- 
nently associated  with  the  name  of  Patrick,  the  patron 
saint  of  Ireland.  As  retold  and  modified  by  Irish  monks, 
the  literature  of  visions  spread  over  all  Europe,  assum- 
ing a  more  popular  shape  in  the  Arthurian  romances. 

37,  For  a  statement  of  the  general  relations  between 
Wessex  and  ISTorthumbria,  in  the  matter  of  prose  and 
poetrj^,  see  §  11. 

Wessex  is  entitled  to  the  additional  credit  of  having 
originated  the  beginnings  of  national  historiography  in 
the  vernacular.  It  had  long  been  a  custom  among 
monks  throughout  Europe  to  jot  down,  in  Latin,  year 
by  year,  brief  notices  of  important  events,  such  as  royal 
births,  deaths,  marriages,  great  battles,  and  other  changes, 
especially  in  the  monastic  order  itself  and  in  the  church. 
These  notices  are  usually  as  meagre  and  matter-of-fact  as 
memoranda  entered  in  a  private  diary.  But  it  seems 
that  the  monk-s  of  Canterbury  and  Winchester  must  have 


62  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

begun  at  an  early  date  to  write  their  notices,  not  in  Latin 
but  in  the  vernacular.  During  the  reign  of  Ethelwulf, 
\  Alfred's  father,  the  first  attempt  was  made  to  work  up 
'  these  scattered  items  into  somethiug  like  a  continuous 
narrative.  The  history  of  the  Angles  and  Saxons  was 
carried  back  to  the  days  of  Hengist  and  Ilorsa,  and 
King  Ethelwulf's  pedigree  traced  through  Othin  to  Noah 
and  Adam.  All  that  part  of  this  first  Winchester  redac- 
tion which  deals  with  persons  and  events  anterior  to  the 
7th  century  is  of  <(uestionable  value,  and  is  probably,  to 
a  large  extent,  mere  popular  tradition.  Passages  here 
and  there  read  like  scraps  of  ancient  poetry  turned  into 
prose.     But  the  part  dealing  with  the  7th  century  and 

j    8th  century  is  authentic,  being  probably  taken   in  sub- 

1    stance  from  early  monkisli  records. 

Towards  the  end  of  Alfred's  reign  the  annals  under- 
went a  second  redaction,  which  continued  the  thread  of 
narrative  down  to  891.  The  new  matter  consists  chiefly 
of  the  events  of  Alfred's  wars  with  the  Danes,  and  has 
therefore  all  the  valne  of  a  contemporary  record.  But 
those  who  had  the  second  redaction  in  charge  interpo- 
lated a  good  many  passages  in  the  preceding  part,  i.e.,  in 
the  fabulous  history  of  early  Britain.  They  carried  the 
narrative  back  as  far  as  60  B.  C.  These  interpolations 
are  not  taken  from  popular  tradition  but  from  Bede's 
Historia.  Probably  the  respect  thus  shown  to  Bede  was 
due  to  Kins'  Alfred's  wishes. 

After  Alfred's  death  the  record  was  resumed — we  can 
not  say  where  or  by  whom — and  continued  to  924,  the 
year  in  which  Alfred's  son,  Edward,  was  at  the  height  of 
his  power  and  rnler  over  nearly  all  England.  Professor 
ten  Brink  ascribes  this  entire  section  of  thirty  years, 
891-924,  to  the  pen  of  a  single  writer,  who  mnst  have 
been  a  man  of  great  ability  and  the  best  prosaist  of  Old- 
England.  His  style  is  unusually  clear  and  vigorous. 
Tlie  annals  for  the   next  half  century,  924-975,  are 


CHRONICLE.  63 

meagre  and  dry.  They  are  enlivened  only  by  the  inser- 
tion of  four  episodes,  narrated  in  alliterative  verse. 
First,  the  victory  of  Athelstan  over  the  Scotch  and 
Northmen,  at  Brunanburh;  second,  the  annexation  of 
the  five  Danish 'boroughs'  of  Leicester,  Lincoln,  IsTot- 
tinghara,  Stamford,  Derby,  924;  third,  Edgar's  corona- 
tion at  Bath,  973;  fourth,  Edgar's  death,  975. 

About  1000  the  annals  seem  to  have  been  trans- 
ferred from  Winchester  to  Canterbury,  Worcester,  and 
Abingdon.  In  Worcester,  about  1016,  a  further  redaction 
was  made,  by  interpolating  many  facts  and  dates  relating 
to  Northumbria  and  Mercia,  which  had  been  collected  in 
the  course  of  the  9th  and  lOtli  centuries.  Another  re- 
daction was  made  in  Abingdon,  about  1046.  The  two 
versions,  the  Worcester  and  the  Abingdon,  then  con- 
tinue, between  them,  the  story  of  England  under  the 
Danish  king  Knut,  under  Edward  the  Confessor,  Good- 
win, and  Harold,  down  to  the  battle  of  Hastings. 

After  the  J^orman  Conquest,  composition  of  every  sort 
in  the  language  of  the  conquered  was  neglected.  The 
annals  merely  shared  in  the  general  decay,  until  at  last 
they  died  a  natural  death,  1154,  when  Henry  IL  ascended 
the  throne.  The  additions  made  from  1066-1154  are 
meagre  enough.  Some  were  made  at  Canterbury  ;  a  few 
more  at  Worcester.  The  principal  redaction  of  this  pe- 
riod was  made  at  Peterborough.  In  1116  the  cathedral 
and  nearly  all  the  adjacent  buildings,  with  their  books 
and  other  documents,  were  destroyed  by  fire.  This  fur- 
nished the  occasion  for  rewriting  the  entire  record.  The 
writers  consulted  the  earlier  records  of  Winchester, 
Worcester,  Canterbury,  and  Abingdon ;  also  the  local 
records  of  Peterborough.  They  interpolated  some 
forged  charters  purporting  to  convey  gifts  to  the  abbey, 
and  brought  the  story  down  to  1121.  From  1121-1131 
this   Peterborough   record  was   kept   up  year  by  year. 


64  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

The  section  from  1132-1154,  as  it  now  stands,  was  prob- 
ably added  by  a  single  scribe,  in  1154. 

The  entire  record,  wiiether. early  or  late,  whether  pre- 
pared at  Winchester,  Canterbury,  Worcester,  Abingdon, 
or  Peterborough,  is  usually  entitled  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle.  It  is  in  the  main  dry  and  tedious  reading, 
imperfect,  abrupt,  not  always  intelligible  or  accurate. 
Yet  it  is  a  most  valuable  document  to  the  historian  and 
to  the  grammarian  ;  it  is  moreover  worthy  of  honor  for 
being  the  first  great  and  sustained  effort  on  the  part 
of  a  modern  folk  to  tell  its  own  history  in  its  own  speech. 


CHAPTEIi  IX. 

ALFRIC — SOLOMON   &    SATURN,  &C. — DECLINE    OF   POETRY. 

28.  For  the  sake  of  unity,  all  the  parts  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Chronicle  have  been  mentioned  in  §  27,  although 
many  of  them  belong  in  point  of  time  to  the  present 
chapter. 

The  literature  of  England  from  the  death  of  Alfred 
to  the  Norman  Conquest  is  more  abundant  than  the 
earlier  literature,  but  is  in  general  much  less  interesting. 
It  is  almost  altogether  a  prose  literature,  and  is  dry  and 
didatic  in  style.  It  bears  witness  to  the  dying  out  of  the 
great  creative  impulse  in  poetry. 

Among  the  more  curious  productions  of  the  period  is 
the  Laece  Boc  (Leech  Book),  a  compilation  of  rales  and 
prescriptions  for  the  treatment  of  various  diseases.  As 
might  be  expected  from  the  low  state  of  medical  study  in 
the  middle  ages,  the  compilation  swarms  with  fantastic 
notions.  Many  forms  of  disease  are  attributed  to  evil 
spirits,  for  which  the  cure  consists  in  incantations  and  ex- 
orcisms.    Some  of  the  formulas  are  in  verse,  and  date 


ALFRIC.  65 

perhaps  from  Leathen  times.  N'ot  a  few  of  the  supersti- 
tions still  survive  among  English  rustics.  The  Lacce 
jBoc  is  based  upon  a  Latin  compilation,  supposed  to  be 
the  work  of  one  Apulejus,  a  Roman  physician  of  the  last 
days  of  the  Empire. 

The  chief  prose  writings  are  of  a  religious  character, 
and  may  be  regarded  as  a  continuation  of  the  work  of 
instruction  begun  by  Alfred.  The  great  reformer  of  the 
10th  century  was  St.  Dunstan,  Arclibishop  of  Cantor- 
bury,  whose  eftbrts  were  directed  to  winning  back  the 
priests  from  worldly  amusements,  to  enforcing  celibacy 
among  them,  and  to  establishing  the  strict  rule  of  St. 
Benedict  in  the  monasteries.  But  St.  Dunstan  has  left  no 
writings  in  English.  What  he  neglected  to  do,  was  more 
than  made  good  by  Alfric,  Abbot  of  Enshani.  Alfric, 
who  died  about  1020,  was  a  pupil  of  the  celebrated 
school  at  Winchester  and  the  most  indefatigable  writer 
of  his  times.  The  more  important  of  his  works  are: 
1.  A  collection  of  80  and  more  homilies,  entitled  Catholi- 
cae.  2.  An  interlinear  version  of  selections  from  Pris- 
cian's  Latin  grammar,  and  an  intev\meiir' CoUoqidum,  or 
dialogue  between  teacher  and  pupil,  so  planned  as  to 
facilitate  the  learning  of  Latin  words  and  phrases.  3.  A 
collection  of  homilies  on  the  lives  of  the  saints,  entitled 
Passiones  Sanctorum.  4.  A  translation  of  the  Pentateuch 
(omitting  passages  here  and  there),  of  Joshua,  Judges, 
and  Job.  5.  An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testament.  Several  of  these  writings  are  in 
alliteration,  e.g.,  the  greater  part  of  the  Passiones,  and 
the  books  of  Numbers,  Joshua,  and  Judges.  The  allit- 
eration is,  to  say  the  least,  a  mistake  on  the  author's 
part.  It  has  not  the  power  of  the  old  heathen  poetry 
nor  the  grace  of  C3'ne\vulf 's  poetry.  It  does  not  con- 
form to  the  rules  of  alliterative  verse;  in  fact  it  is  little 
more  than  slightly  versified  prose,  and  is  much  inferior 
to  his  regular  prose.     But,  notwithstanding  this  weak- 


66  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

ness,  Alfrie  was  the  model  of  an  industrious  scholar,  and 
indisputably  the  most  influential  writer  of  English  after 
King  Alfred.  The  above  list  gives  but  a  fraction  of  his 
numerous  writings. 

Somewhat  earlier  in  time  than  Alfrie  is  the  Northum- 
brian interlinear  version  of  the  gospels,  made  in  Lindis- 
farn  and  transferred  to  Durham  when  that  city  became 
the  seat  of  the  bisliopric.  Also  earlier  than  Alfrie  by  a 
few  years  is  a  collection  of  homilies  preserved  in  the 
Blickling  MS.  Later  probably  than  Alfrie,  certainly 
not  by  him,  is  the  Wessex  translation  of  the  gospels. 

29.  An  interesting  poem  of  this  period  is  one  entitled 
Solomon  and  Saturn.  Solomon  symbolizes  Christian, 
Saturn  heathen  wisdom  ;  the  poem  is  in  the  form  of 
a  dialoswe  or  encounter  of  wits,  in  Avhich — as  mis^ht  be 
expected — Solomon  comes  oii"  victorious.  The  theme 
was  a  favorite  one  in  the  middle  ages  ;  but,  although  it 
must  have  originated  in  the  east,  we  have  no  version, 
Latin,  Greek,  or  otherwise,  earlier  than  the  Anglo-Saxon. 
Solomon  as  representative  of  christian  doctrine  calls  for 
no  explanation.  But  it  is  not  so  easy  to  account  for  the 
introduction  of  Saturn.  It  is  believed  that  there  was  a 
Jewish  tradition  according  to  which  Solomon  figured  as 
the  champion  of  Jewish  wisdom  against  Marcolis,  an 
oriental  divinity  corresponding  to  the  classic  god  Mer- 
cury. Among  German-speaking  nations  the  oriental 
name  Marcolis  was  converted  into  Marculf;  and  this 
form  is  still  retained  in  the  continental-German  versions 
of  the  story.  But  in  England  the  name  Marcolis  seems 
to  have  been  confounded  with  Malcol  (Milcol),  i.e., 
Moloch,  the  name  of  another  oriental  divinity  corres- 
ponding to  Saturn.  Thus  the  word  Saturn  came  to  be 
substituted  in  England  for  Marculf.  The  old  English 
version  is  quite  fragmentary,  and — like  all  mystical  writ- 
ings— is  obscure.     A  large  part  of  it  consists  in   Solo- 


BATTLE    OF   MALDON.  67 

moil's  going  through  the  Fater  Nosier  for  Saturn's  edifi- 
Ccition,  interpreting  each  letter  as  if  it  were  a  rune.  The 
continental  versions,  notably  the  French,  diifer  from  the 
Eno-lisli  in  giving  to  the  dialogue  a  burlesque  tone,  and 
the  wit  not  infrequently  becomes  profane  and  scurrilous. 

Another  and  more  important  production  is  the  metri-  : 
cal  paraphrase  of  the  book  of  Psalms,  made  not  later  i 
than  the  middle  of  the  10th  century.  (An  earlier  ver-^ 
sion  of  the  50th  Psalm  has  been  mentioned,  §  22).  For 
the  songs  inserted  in  the  Chronicle,  see  §  27.  Superior 
in  every  way  to  these  chi'onicle-songs  is  one  composed 
near  the  end  of  the  10th  century.  It  is  a  poem  of  325 
verses,  (both  introduction  and  conclusion  are  wanting), 
in  commemoration  of  Bvrhtnoth,  and  is  called  either 
Byrhtnoth'' s  Death  or  The  Battle  of  3Ialdon.  In  the  year 
991  a  band  of  Northmen  landed  on  the  eastern  coast  of 
England.  The}^  were  attacked  near  Maldon  by  Byrht- 
noth at  the  head  of  a  few  hastily  gathered  troops.  The 
contest  was  long  and  desperate.  Byrhtnoth  fell,  but  the 
invaders  were  checked.  The  poem  is  one  of  the  most 
spirited  in  the  language  and  fully  worthy  of  a  place  beside 
Beowulf  and  the  Battle  of  Fiiinshurh.  It  must  have  been 
composed  immediately  after  the  battle,  for  the  author 
appears  not  to  have  known  the  name  of  the  Danish 
leader,  which  is  given  as  Anlaf  in  the  Chronicle. 

80.  The  poetry  of  the  11th  centuiw  exhibits  unmis- ; 
takable  signs  of  a  transition  period.  It  is  the  business 
of  the  grammarian  to  examine  these  changes  in  detail. 
All  that  can  be  attempted  in  this  p>lace  is  to  mention 
some  of  the  most  marked.  1.  The  alliteration  becomes  ( 
more  and  more  careless  ;  almost  any  similarit}^  of  sound 
is  regarded  as  sufficient.  2.  Less  care  is  taken  to  let  the 
alliteration  rest  on  the  emphatic  words  in  the  line.  3. 
There  is  a  tendency  to  make  the  transitions  of  uicniiiiig 
coincide  with  the  end  of  the  fnll   line.     This  is  in  direct 


68  ANGLO-SAXON   LITERATURE. 

opposition  to  the  style  of  the  earlier  poetry,  which 
usually  carries  the  syntactic  meaning  over  from  one  line 
to  the  next.  Inasmuch  as  the  caesura,  or  half-way 
pause,  is  still  kept  u[),  the  full  line  is  thus  divided  mo- 
notonously into  two  halves.  4.  These  halves  are  fre- 
quently made  to  rime.  This  is  a  decisive  step  towards 
the  riming  eight-syllable  or  ten-syllable  '  couplets  '  which 
were  the  predominant  metre  of  France  and  Germany 
from  the  10th  to  the  14th  century.  The  following  pas- 
sage, taken  from  the  Chronicle,  sub  anno  1036,  will  make 
all  these  points  clear.  It  describes  the  fate  of  Alfred, 
son  of  Ethelrcd. 

Sona  swa  he  lende,         on  scype  mon  hine  blende 
And  hine  swa  blindne   "     bvohte  to  tham  munecon, 
And  he  thaei"  wunode         tha  hwile  the  he  leofode. 
Syththan  hine  man  byrigde,         swa  him  wel  gebyrde, 
Aet  tham  westende    .     tham  stypele  ful-gehende 
On  tham  suthportice  ;         seo  sawul  is  mid  Christe. 

As  soon  as  he  landed,         on  the  ship  they  him  blinded, 
And  hina  tlius  blind        brought  (they)  to  the  monks 
And  there  he  dwelt         (all)  the  while  he  lived. 
Afterwards  they  him  buried,         as  him  well  befitted, 
At  the  west  end,         the  steeple  (tower)  hard  by, 
In  the  south  portal ;         his  soul  is  with  Christ. 

Rimes  like  lende:  blende,  wunode  :  lufode,  byrigde: 
gebyrde,  ende:  gehende,  portice:  Christe,  are  nnmis- 
takable,  and  the  two  halves  of  each  line  make  a  couplet. 

It  is  important  to  note  these  symptoms.  They  show 
how  erroneous  it  would  be  to  attribute  the  disintegra- 
tion of  the-  early  language  and  literature  solely  to  the 
ISTorman  Conquest.  The  truth  is  that  tendencies  to 
chancre  had  lonsr  been  at  work  in  Ens^land,  no  less 
than  in  Germany.  Thus  there  are  several  riming  pas- 
sages in  Cynewulfs  p'oems  and  in  the  Phoenix.  But 
the  English  maintained  their  primitive  system  longer 
than  the    GcrniMus,  for  the  victoi-y  of  rime  over   allit- 


SIGNS    OF    TRANSITION'.  69 

eration  was  complete  in  German}'  by  the  end  of  the 
9th  century.  Even  had  the  Normans  never  invaded 
England,  the  English  would  have  developed  eight  and 
ten-syllable  riming  couplets  in  imitation  of  the  French, 
just  as  the  Germans  did.  And  they  would  also  have 
patterned  their  literature  after  the  Frencli  romances 
that  were  then  fast  becoming  the  fashion.  The  Nor--' 
man  Conquest  accelerated  the  substitution  of  rime  for 
alliteration,  and  the  importation  of  romance-literature.- 
But  the  process  would  have  gone  on,  more  slowly,  it 
is  true,  without  the  Normans. 

In  evidence  that  literary  taste  in  England  was  chang- 
ing, it  will  sutRce  to  cite  the  fact  that  the  story  of 
ApoUoniiis  of  Tyre  and  the  Letters  of  Alexander  the 
Great  to  Aristotle,  fabulous  subjects  taken  from  the 
later  Greek  prose  romances,  were  translated  into  English 
before  the  Conquest.  The  Old-German  heroic  spirit 
and  heroic  verse  were  doomed  .to  pass  away  before  the 
new  era  of  sentimentality  and  adventure. 


3  1158  00561  2147 

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